KEY POINTS:
Almost a third of children aged 11 to 15 are working after school or at weekends - and a survey has found that they want to keep the right to work.
The survey of 1482 students in years 7 to 11 in Auckland and Manukau cities was done for the Labour Department by researchers at the Dunedin College of Education in 2003, but has never been published by the department.
It found that 58 per cent of students opposed a law to ban employment below a minimum age, despite a clause in the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child requiring all states to fix a minimum working age.
Only 27 per cent of the children supported a legal minimum working age, and more than half of those (15 per cent) suggested a minimum that was either their age or younger.
Avondale College 16-year-old Anna Aiulu, who has worked 20 to 30 hours a week at the Westgate KFC for the past year, says she works for her family but would want to work even if her family didn't need her wages. "I come from a family of seven kids. I'm the oldest, so I'm trying to help my parents out."
Her mum works full time as a caregiver, but her dad is a diabetic and does temporary factory work, so Anna's wages "help my brothers and sisters out with school fees and with bills around the house". Her pay went up a while ago from $9.13 to $10.53 an hour, and she has just been promoted to management on $14 an hour.
Her mother drives her to work after school to start at 4pm and her dad picks her up at 10pm. She believes her school work hasn't suffered.
"Everyone asks me how I do it," she says. "It's balancing. If I can get enough time during school, use my lunchtime, do some homework after school and go into work - it's pretty hard but I'm getting there. I even manage to do some homework in the office during my breaks."
She will do year 13 at Avondale this year and wants to study business at university next year.
The 2003 survey found that 19 per cent of 11-year-olds, 27 per cent of 12-year-olds, 29 per cent of 13-year-olds and 42 per cent of 14-year-olds worked after school or at weekends.
Work dropped back slightly to 38 per cent at age 15, when most students face their first external exams.
Nationwide census figures, which only ask about work for those aged 15 and over, suggest that after-school jobs have declined as the economy has improved, reducing the need for children to supplement family incomes.
The proportion of 15-year-olds working dropped from 33 per cent in 1996 to 28 per cent in 2001 and 26 per cent last year. Overall employment at higher ages has been stable at 40 per cent at age 16 and 50 per cent at age 17.
But even in those age groups, the proportion working under 20 hours a week - the best indicator of school students working after school - has dropped from 29 per cent to 25 per cent of 16-year-olds, and from 25 per cent to 23 per cent of 17-year-olds.
The 2003 survey found that most school students worked only a few hours a week - an average of five hours at ages 11 and 12, six hours at 13, seven hours at 14 and 10 hours at 15. Most said they spent their wages on "things I want" (66 per cent), "things I need" (37 per cent), or, like Anna Aiulu, to save for tertiary education or other goals (also 37 per cent).
Eight per cent said they gave their wages to their families. Pacific students were more likely to do so (20 per cent), but the report said this might at times be for cultural reasons rather than need.
The Labour Department has been reviewing the idea of a minimum working age for several years and its latest briefing to Labour Minister Trevor Mallard in November said it was "actively working" on the issue.
But the researcher who led the 2003 survey, Dr Ruth Gasson, concluded that international evidence showed that there was unlikely to be any harm from children working up to 10 to 15 hours a week, and that children themselves wanted the right to work.
"Exploitation in the workplace happens, and should be addressed," she writes. "But the introduction of minimum age legislation may not be the most effective way to do it."
On the web:
http://www.otago.ac.nz/education/research/ypaw_report.pdf
