Working children?

The Youth Labour Protection Act reforms West German child labour laws

For centuries, it was considered entirely normal for German children to go out to work or help in their parents’ business. However, attitudes changed in the 19th century, with various German states introducing legal protections against child labour. Concerned about the fitness of military recruits, Prussia banned the employment of children under the age of nine by factories in 1839, and limited the working hours of under-16s to ten hours a day. Further restrictions on child labour were introduced in imperial Germany, with children under the age of 13 prohibited from working in factories. For its part, the Third Reich relaxed child labour protections, in part to promote military recruitment. All child labour regulations were suspended during the Second World War, but were reinstated after 1945.

9 August 1960 saw the West German Bundestag pass a new Youth Labour Protection Act, significant parts of which remain in force today. Child labour was prohibited for all persons under the age of 15, and various measures were implemented to protect the welfare of young people aged 15 to 17. Those permitted to work could only do so for eight hours a day and for no more than 40 hours a week. With only a few exceptions for certain occupations, under-18s were banned from performing piecework or dangerous work, and from working at weekends, on public holidays, and at night. The situation was reformed again in 1998, and the Child Labour Protection Ordinance permits 13- and 14-year-olds to perform light work such as delivering newspapers.