Investigating the Influential Factors in Improving the Quality of Life for Working Children (Case Study: City of Shiraz)
Subject Areas : Regional PlanningShirin Heidari 1 , Ahmad Torkaman 2 *
1 - Departmet of Architecture,Marvdasht Branch,Islamic Azad University, Marvdasht,Iran
2 - Department of Architecture, Engineering Faculty, Assistant Prof.
Keywords: Quality of life, Shiraz, Poverty, child labor,
Abstract :
As a salient predicament witnessed in many cities today, child labor incurs detrimental effects on many societies, equally embroiling developed and developing countries, which results in widespread poverty and class differences. Neglecting various dimensions of life quality due to the rapid growth of urban areas has brought about adverse consequences influencing the individuals' and societies' health and peace. Studies show that child laborers are deprived of favorable quality of life and they are usually exposed and vulnerable to various social harms including sexual abuse, drug addiction and peddling as well as many other physical and mental harms. Considering the importance of growing and nurturing conditions for this group of children, it seems necessary to conduct a research on the quality of life for child laborers. In general, the purpose of this study is to identify working children's conditions, assess their needs, and introduce the effective factors in improving their life quality in the order of priority. A descriptive-analytical method is employed in this study and the statistical population is comprised of the working children in the city of Shiraz. Data were collected using library and field approaches and the correlation analysis method was employed to analyze the information. A review of the research literature as well as the inferential statistics and the results of Friedman, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, and Chi-square tests show that elements such as income, job, accessing to housing and food, security, education, healthcare services, relationships, and sanitation are among the most important factors in improving the quality of life for working children.