One is to ban it. This has some obvious drawbacks in weak economies, e.g. if the kid's choices are to work or to starve and then you ban them from working, they starve. It also interferes with kids being entrepreneurial. What's wrong with a kid mowing some lawns after school for spending money?
The other option is to create an economy strong enough that parents have no need to put their children to work instead of sending them to school, and then they don't.
What developed countries often do is to do the second one, then the first one, because that has some evolutionary fitness in politics. The more severe drawback of the first method is mitigated when the second one is in place, because then you're banning something people mostly wouldn't be doing anyway. Meanwhile politicians then get to claim credit for "solving the problem" by passing the ban, after it was already solved by something else.
These alternatives generalize to most types of labor restrictions (e.g. minimum wage). The reason only ~1% of people make minimum wage is that minimum wage is dumb so the rate is set low enough to minimize the damage done by the law, while still giving politicians something to claim credit for passing. What you actually want to do is the following: Use transfer payments (e.g. EITC/UBI) to help people making low wages, foster a stronger economy where people get paid more (e.g. make it easier to start a business), and lower the cost of living by preventing market consolidation and regulatory capture (e.g. enforce antitrust and don't allow restrictive zoning to constrain the housing supply).
Then you don't have to ban people from accepting less than a given amount of money because they would be under no pressure to do that to begin with.
One is to ban it. This has some obvious drawbacks in weak economies, e.g. if the kid's choices are to work or to starve and then you ban them from working, they starve. It also interferes with kids being entrepreneurial. What's wrong with a kid mowing some lawns after school for spending money?
The other option is to create an economy strong enough that parents have no need to put their children to work instead of sending them to school, and then they don't.
What developed countries often do is to do the second one, then the first one, because that has some evolutionary fitness in politics. The more severe drawback of the first method is mitigated when the second one is in place, because then you're banning something people mostly wouldn't be doing anyway. Meanwhile politicians then get to claim credit for "solving the problem" by passing the ban, after it was already solved by something else.
These alternatives generalize to most types of labor restrictions (e.g. minimum wage). The reason only ~1% of people make minimum wage is that minimum wage is dumb so the rate is set low enough to minimize the damage done by the law, while still giving politicians something to claim credit for passing. What you actually want to do is the following: Use transfer payments (e.g. EITC/UBI) to help people making low wages, foster a stronger economy where people get paid more (e.g. make it easier to start a business), and lower the cost of living by preventing market consolidation and regulatory capture (e.g. enforce antitrust and don't allow restrictive zoning to constrain the housing supply).
Then you don't have to ban people from accepting less than a given amount of money because they would be under no pressure to do that to begin with.