Child labor
Child labor was cheap, popular, and common throughout the 1800s and was a major reason for increased efforts for achieving better working conditions. Forced to work from a young age, children's well-being and education were neglected, and poor families in need of extra money disregarded laws concerning child labor, forcing young children to work in places better suited for adults. Working from a young age, especially in the mines, disrupted physical and mental growth in young minds. Children required to stoop all the time to complete their jobs ended up with back problems as they grew older, which could lead to more serious injuries and issues. Also, restricted from having any real social contact, kids did not have time to fully enjoy their childhoods and make friends, and they oftentimes followed in parents' footsteps on the long road to depression from an early age. Although there were laws intended to protect youth, they often weren't enforced. Business owners loved hiring children as they were a lot cheaper, still completed a lot of work, and were more easily replaceable than adults. Children had no choice: starve to death or attempt to survive the terrifying work circumstances that adult men had trouble living through. But the misfortunes of child labor come in full circle. If adults received better pay from the start, they would have no need to send their children to work to scrounge for spare change in order to get by, therefor eliminating the need for child labor. In the end, the blame for a generation suited for nothing more than mindless labor rests on the shoulders of rich, high ranked business with more concern for money than human life.