Sector based qualitative analysis of the working life of child workers:The case of Manisa province

Although child labor is a social problem that preserves its existence in every period of history, it is the outcome of some fundamental problems such as poverty, unemployment and migration. The concept of child labor involves working in jobs that affect children's physical, spiritual and mental development negatively. Putting children into working life brings a lot of physical, psychological and social risks as well as interrupting the usual developmental stages of childhood. Therefore, a detailed investigation of the working life of children is essential to solve such an important problem. At this point, it is seen that children do not work on a single sector and have many different working areas. In the research, children were grouped under the title of street, agriculture, industry and service sectors according to the sectors they work in. The research, carried out with the concern of examining the working lives of children in detail, aims to clarify whether the working lives differ in sectoral sense by categorizing the work lives of children and what the similar and diverging aspects of the sectors are. Qualitative research method was preferred in this research. The research data were collected through a semi-structured interview form. The interview form included questions regarding the demographic information, job status, working conditions, risks that may be encountered while working, and their expectations for the future. The data collection activity within the scope of the qualitative field research of the research was carried out through observation and in-depth interview. Child workers are categorized according to their employment in the street, agriculture, industry and service sectors. The sample size was determined as 40 children, 10 children aged between 11 and 17, from each group working in the province of Manisa. While taking the sample, "Snowball Sampling Method" was used and descriptive analysis technique was used in the data analysis phase. As a result of the analysis of the data obtained, it was concluded that the working lives of child workers differed on a sector basis, and it was concluded that child labor cannot be positioned over a single workspace and the studies on the solution of child labor problem, this point should not be overlooked.