The Progress Report: Child Labor Drops by 100 Million

Featuring Zachary Karabell and Emma Varvaloucas

On this week’s Progress Report, Emma is going solo with the news. Discover how global child labor has nearly halved since 2000, why alarming disaster statistics might be more about better data than a world in crisis, and how Britain’s zoos are rolling out major reforms to improve animal welfare.

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Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription software errors.

Emma: All right. Welcome everyone to The Progress Report, YouTube denizens, Spotify podcast listeners, wherever you’re listening to us, you are very welcome. Today, I’m flying solo. Zachary is not with us today, but he will be back next week. I still have a great potpourri of things that will hopefully give you a little bit of a lift at the end of your week.

And if it does do that for you, please feel free to let us know. We’re at hello at The Progress Network dot org. So we’re gonna start with a couple of things this week that one of them is not necessarily progress. But it falls under the umbrella of things that the media misses or the media unintentionally skews that can kind of screw with our conception of how the world is moving forward and even if it’s moving forward.

So that one is going to be a bit of a discussion around. Data, which we occasionally like to do here, but occasionally, I mean all the time. And the first one is for sure unequivocal progress, but it does tend to be a macro trend that is just not designed for the media to report on. It doesn’t get into that 24 7 news cycle.

And in fact, we risk this here, these kinds of big numbers and these big macro trends. Risk being a little bit boring, but I’m gonna tell you about them anyway because it really represents transformational change in our lives. Of children in this case. So today we are going to talk about child labor. It has gone through a massive decline since 2000.

This is from a recent report from unicef. So since 2000 it has nearly halved, which again, anytime we talk about these big trends. It’s especially impressive given increasing population numbers. So there were about 246 million children engaged in child labor in 2000. That number is now down to 138 million.

Experts were a little bit concerned ’cause there was a bit of a spike around 2016 and they were worried that the trend was starting to reverse. But in fact it has since then begun to decline again and we’re back on our regularly scheduled drop for child labor just since 2020. That means 20 million children were not engaged in child labor as 20 million fewer children since 2020.

Also engaged in child labor and this trend actually holds true for every single region of the world. Of course, the drops are different depending on the region. The drops are the smallest in Sub-Saharan Africa, if you’ve been with us a long time you tend to know that a lot of these trends are smallest in Sub-Saharan Africa.

A lot of these progress trends there, the incidence has declined. However, the absolute numbers of kids in child labor has. Stayed the same again because of those explosive population numbers. But everywhere else in the re in, in the world, all other regions, both the incidents and the absolute numbers have declined.

And again, we’re talking about a near half of the number of kids in child labor between 2000 and. 2025. That also includes, by the way, there are obviously different kinds of child labor. They specifically separate out hazardous child labor, hazardous work from other kinds, and I’m very happy to report that.

Also when it comes to hazardous work. So something that threatens their health also, they include in that definition, by the way, something that threatens their morals. The numbers of children engaged in hazardous work have also gone down by an incredible amount since 2000. About 170 million children in 2000 were engaged in hazardous work, and in 2024 it was 54 million.

So of course we’re still talking about millions and millions of children not being able to have a full childhood the way that they deserve. But again, if you use the past as a benchmark of, you know, success and progress we are certainly going in the right direction. So hoping that trend will continue and that those numbers will just keep dropping.

We’d love to see that. So, moving on from that, and again, I think that’s unequivocal progress. It’s something that you’re definitely not gonna see in most mainstream media outlets. Maybe there’ll be an article, but it’s certainly not something that people have in their general awareness and general narrative about the world.

But the next thing that we’re gonna move to is. Not exactly progress, but I think it’s a really interesting point about how data is portrayed in the news and how it can contribute to a conception that the whole world is going to the dogs. And of course there are many real problems that the world is facing, but it would be good to maybe sever out.

What’s a really significant problem from what’s not, and this is a new graph from our world in data. You might have seen in the news claim that the number of natural disasters in the world, so that includes earthquakes, volcanoes, landside, also weather related disasters like storms, floods, droughts, and extreme temperatures.

You might be familiar, you might have seen before the claim that the number of disasters has. Quadrupled over the last 50 years and anytime we report on that stat in The Progress Network, and I have reported on that stat I always include that is in part due to improved reporting. But in fact this graph from our world and data is actually showing us that it’s basically all due to improved reporting.

If you could see this graph, there’s essentially an alarming spike between 1970 and now. Now meaning basically 20 23, 20 24, showing the number of natural disasters just shooting up. Combined with our legitimate concerns about climate change, it really just lends credence to this worldview of like.

The world is falling apart. MA, which is an international disaster database, has actually put out information that says, listen, that alarming spike is really because we got a lot better at gathering comprehensive data for the entire world. And if you’re going to make comparisons between the past and now, you can really only make legitimate comparisons if you’re going between 2000 and now.

And if you can see this graph that I’m looking at right now it’s generally. Flat between 2000 and now, this is not by any means climate change denialism, by the way. And our world in data is very careful to make it clear that the number of natural disasters is basically due to better reporting. And that’s why it looks like there are so many more now than there used to.

To be in the past, but this has nothing to do with the intensity of those disasters. And of course, we know from climate science that climate change does affect the intensity of disasters, weather related events such as hurricanes. So keep that in mind. We’re not saying that climate change isn’t real or that it doesn’t affect the weather or that you shouldn’t be concerned, just that the next time you see this stat in the news that the number of disasters has quadrupled over the last 50 years.

That’s really because of better reporting and that we now know what’s happening all over the earth in a much more comprehensive way than we used to. So I think we’re gonna move on to our last bit of information. And this one is just a feel good one, just a nice one. After all, the child labor and all of the kind of.

Nitty gritty data stuff about disasters and climate change. Britain is having its first update to zoo standards in a decade, so under these new changes that are being put out by their department for environment, food and Rural Affairs, if you don’t know agencies. In my brain, which I certainly do not.

Elephants must be given larger habitats. They’re also bringing to an end the long-term tethering of birds of prey as taken from a BBC article. So no more keeping birds of prey captive by some kind of rope or tethering system for long periods of time, and you will no longer be able to touch fish or sea creatures like rays and octopuses.

Certainly have done that in the United States. Suck your hand right in there. Give ’em a nice stroke. It’s pretty fun. I, but definitely there’s been lots of awareness in the last few years about how that can be scary and traumatic for the animals. So these are new standards for both zoos and aquariums.

Zoos and aquariums. There are going to have two years to adapt to the changes. Some of them have already got started on it, and I will say, by the way, there is certainly. A small decline in the acceptance of zoos as an extracurricular activity. As a recreational activity. You might be listening to this as an animal rights activist and thinking that’s not enough for you.

But certainly, even though there has been a little bit less acceptance for the general public around zoos, I don’t think they’re really going anywhere anytime soon. So these small changes will hopefully make things a little bit more livable, a little bit more just for the animals that we. Keep captive in our zoos.

So that is what we have for today. Thank you so much for spending your time, I should say with us, but with me today I really appreciate everybody listening in and tuning in and hearing about the things that we don’t tend to hear. If you are scrolling on social media, listening to general news podcasts to throw shade at the work they do, the mainstream media and also all of the new media that is around these days.

Some of them are doing really fantastic work. It’s just the nature of the news, negative by design, and we are here to give you a little bit of a counterbalance to that, and I hope that I have today. So please join us next Wednesday for our usual interview, and as I said, Zachary will be with us again next Friday for our weekly progress report.

In the meantime, have a great weekend everybody.

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Zachary Karabell

Emma Varvaloucas

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