Abstract
Child labor is a serious and controversial issue. Despite governments establishing health policies prohibiting or restricting the age of entry to the job market, there is still a large number of working children and adolescents worldwide, particularly informal workers. This study aimed to evaluate the living and working conditions of adolescents. Work activities were home-based involving the production of jewelry and fashion jewelry, in a Brazilian city, Limeira, São Paulo. Participants were 11–17-year-old workers and non-workers, who answered a comprehensive questionnaire on their living and working conditions and filled out a time-budget protocol for 10 consecutive days. Both instruments were applied twice during both school and vacation terms. Chi-square/Fisher and Student’s t tests were used, and Bonferroni corrections were performed in the significance levels of the statistical methods. During school time, working children/adolescents had lower mean sleep duration (p < 0.01) than non-working ones. During vacation, non-working youths enjoyed longer leisure time (p < 0.04). Comparing school and vacation times, working youths showed no significant difference in daily routine (p > 0.05), while non-workers spent more time on leisure activities during the vacation period (p = 0.005). In summary, this study found that working at home had a deleterious effect on the sleep and leisure of the youths studied. These data should be considered as an exposome component (specific external exposure) in evaluations of long-term health endpoints and their possible causes.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful for the collaboration of all volunteers and their families who took part in this investigation. The authors would also like to thank the graduate student Allan Santos de Oliveira for his support.
Funding
This research was supported by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP, Grant #2016/11087-8) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq). ECP and APSSF were recipients of FAPESP scholarships (#2017/14392-9 and #2017/15797-2).
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The study protocol was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the School of Public Health of the University of São Paulo (Protocol N° 41965115.0.0000.5421).
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Pereira, E.C., Ferreira, A.P.S.d., Sato, A.P.S. et al. Home-based outsourced informal work by children and adolescents impacts sleep and leisure—a preliminary study. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 32754–32761 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09551-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09551-0