The Shadows of Childhood on Social Security: A Study of Adolescents with a History of Child Labor
Keywords:
Child Labor, Social Security, Adolescents Former Child Laborers, Social Vulnerability, citizenship socializationAbstract
Purpose: This study aimed to examine social security and its related components among adolescents with a history of child labor and to identify the direct and indirect relationships underlying social insecurity in this population.
Methodology: This basic, multi-method study employed a correlational survey design based on structural equation modeling together with a causal-comparative approach. The study population comprised adolescents aged 14–20 years with a history of child labor in Tehran, assessed from spring to winter 2022–2023. Multistage cluster sampling was used, and after incomplete questionnaires were excluded, data from 267 participants were analyzed. Social security, social well-being, job security, general health, economic security, and psychological security were assessed using validated standardized and researcher-developed instruments. Pearson correlation, bootstrap mediation analysis, structural equation modeling, and independent-samples t tests were used for inferential analysis.
Findings: Social security was positively and significantly correlated with social well-being (r=0.289), job security (r=0.391), general health (r=0.297), economic security (r=0.398), and psychological security (r=0.389; p<0.01). Bootstrap analysis indicated that psychological security partially mediated the associations of social well-being and physical/personal security with social security. For economic security, the indirect effect through psychological security was significant while the direct effect was nonsignificant, indicating an approximately full mediation effect. In contrast, the association between job security and social security was predominantly direct. The modified structural model yielded CFI=0.927 and TLI=0.922, although RMSEA=0.119 indicated residual model-fit limitations. Independent-samples t tests showed significant gender differences across all study variables (p<0.001), with girls consistently demonstrating poorer security-related outcomes than boys.
Conclusion: Childhood labor experience is associated with persistent vulnerability across adolescents’ social, psychological, economic, and occupational domains, while psychological security appears to be an important mechanism through which some dimensions—particularly economic security—affect social security; therefore, interventions for former child laborers should be multidimensional and should specifically address the greater vulnerability observed among girls.
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