Children working in the postmedieval Netherlands endured physical demands severe enough to leave visible damage in their growing spines, with some injuries appearing in children who had not yet lost all their baby teeth. Researchers found signs of spinal wear in children as young as 4 who lived and worked between the 1600s and 1800s.
Child labor became increasingly common in the Netherlands from the early 1600s. By the 1800s, census data indicated that children accounted for about 5% of the workforce, or roughly 27,200 children. Some began working at age 4, with workdays that could last 12, 15 or even 17 hours.
Historical records describe the jobs children performed and the wages they received, but provide little information about what that work did to their developing bodies.
To investigate, Alex Tutwiler, a Ph.D. candidate at Leiden University, and Rachel Schats examined the remains of 143 children and young people between ages 4 and 25. The individuals had lived between the 1600s and 1800s and included documented workers from rural dairy farms in Middenbeemster and industrial factories in Arnhem.
The researchers compared them with children from Delft who had lived more affluent, nonworking lives.
The differences were especially clear among the children from Middenbeemster.
Dairy work put the most stress on the spine
Historical records indicate that children as young as 9 in Middenbeemster were expected to carry milk basins and cheese molds. The repeated lifting and physical work left evidence in the joints of their upper backs.
The researchers found worn spinal joints, bony growths along the edges of vertebrae and dents in the discs between the vertebrae. These kinds of changes are typically associated with aging and years of strenuous physical activity.
Tutwiler compared the process to wearing shoes that are too small. Repeated stress can cause damage, and over time the affected body part can change shape.
The children also had Schmorl’s nodes, in which the softer material of a spinal disc pushes into the bone of a neighboring vertebra. Tutwiler compared the process to a soft stress ball pressing through a net when too much pressure is applied.
The evidence was particularly striking because some of the affected children were still very young.
“It was honestly heartbreaking,” Tutwiler said. “As scientists we develop hypotheses and test them, but it’s hard to factor in the emotional impact that work like this can have until you’re in the process of actually analyzing the skeletal remains of these children.”
Factory work produced a different pattern
Children who worked in Arnhem’s factories had a different pattern of spinal damage.
They spent as long as 12 hours spinning, sewing and weaving. Although the work was exhausting, the study suggests it placed much less stress on their spines than the heavy labor performed by children on the dairy farms.
Arnhem’s factory children were therefore more similar to the nonworking children from Delft. Problems in the lower back were still present, however.
The Delft children had a small number of spinal abnormalities as well. The researchers suggested these could have been related to activities such as play or horseback riding.
At the other extreme, the researchers also considered the possibility that too little physical activity contributed to spinal damage among the Delft children. They were expected to spend long periods studying, sitting and reading.
The effects of child labor remain difficult to measure
The Netherlands eventually banned child labor, but child labor continues elsewhere. UNICEF estimated that 137.6 million children were forced into labor worldwide in 2024.
The long-term effects of that work on children’s bodies remain only partly understood. One reason is that children involved in labor often do not receive medical care.
Tutwiler plans to use CT scans to investigate whether similar effects can be found in children’s arms and legs.
The study was published in the International Journal of Paleopathology.
