the psychological risks and harms of working children: developing a network communication model

Children under labor can be considered as one of the most vulnerable classes of the society. the labor shouldered by these children is a prevailing global issue affecting millions of children, incurring massive detrimental consequences on their psychological health. this paper deals with investigating the deep psychological risks and harms associated with child labor, and studies multidimensional communication paths between them through network analysis. past research about child labor has mostly focused on examining the individual and familial factors contributing to this phenomenon. nevertheless, better understanding of the complex networks that interconnect the risks and harms of child labor is essential for development of more effective interventions. accordingly, all texts published about the risks and harms resulting from child labor underwent census, whereby 40 non-repeated main variables were identified. since most of the texts were english and the researchers were preoccupied with the variables being native, semi-structured interviews were performed with specialists involved in child labor, whereby three other variables that did not exist in the set of variables extracted from the research background were added. thereafter, a sample consisting of 2161 children under labor was chosen through cluster sampling from all provinces of the country. then, questionnaires dealing with measuring the research variables were implemented on them and in some cases on their guardians. the results of network analysis of the collected data led to identification of the most important psychological harms and risks resulting from child labor. the results indicated that no unidimensional causal relation can be determined between the effect of labor on the psychological health of children, which here had been defined in the form of psychological risks and harms of child labor. in other words, not only is child labor effective on their psychological health, but also psychological health also affects working children. although the psychological harms and risks resulting from child labor interact with environmental factors, generally child labor has detrimental effects on their health. the challenge that the present research dealt with has been prioritization of the psychological harms and risks resulting from child labor.