Globalization is a primary driving force in the practice of child labor globally. With the ever-expanding global economy and connectedness between countries, corporations are looking for the cheapest labor sources. With strict regulations and prohibitions in developed countries in places like the UK and the US, businesses look toward less regulated areas of the developing world. Setting up manufacturing factories, sweatshop clothing, and accessory warehouses in places like Latin America, Sub Sahara Africa, and Asia Pacific regions though this is the smaller side of the problem. The primary impact felt by globalization is the increased demand for food trade, family farming, and industrial farming needing to meet this increased demand. The lack of enforcement of global worker protections is also impacting child workers needing protections carried out.

Extreme poverty is the direct result of income inequality and wealth imbalance. Developed countries hold the majority of the world's wealth, and the extremely rich within them hold onto it. This leaves developing countries exposed with little wealth and being exploited for their resources. At low face value of the resources, they get purchased and turned into repurposed goods for a higher value, such as diamonds in Africa, Oil in Latin America, and Sugar in the Pacific region, to name a few. Either these resources are exploited with local labor used to extract them or they are bought and resold for high profit. This also takes the true earning potential out of the local economy and places it in the global economy.

While the problem of child labor is driven by an economic cause focusing on poverty, employers also play a role in initiating child labor as well. Employers in these developing countries are faced with a decision to meet the demands of their global partners. Global capitalist corporations want their goods at the lowest possible price to maximize profits. This demand forces the hands of businesses to hire the cheapest possible labor force to make any money themselves. This, in turn, opens the doors for child laborers as hiring children allows them to pay lower wages, and it cuts back on the overall cost of labor and production. This grants employers the ability to still make a higher profit at the expense of exploiting these children to poor working conditions and unfair wages. There are also no protections in place or enforced to prevent employers from doing this practice.

Discarding Phones Leads to Increased Child Labor in Cobalt Mines.

Source: Cobalt mining for phones: How you could be holding a product of child labour.

Child Labor is Primarily Driven in Agriculture.

Source: Child labour is not just in factories (youtube.com). 

Child Labor in Diamond Mines: Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Source: Children of the mines.

Living conditions in the developing world are deplorable. Of the estimated 200 million child laborers, over 177 million children are working in developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America with high poverty levels. This is where basic living standards are hard to meet such as food, water, and shelter. This forces families to make difficult decisions between unfair and unsafe work or no means of basic survival. Many rural farming families are also in extreme poverty and the whole family works their farms including children to help the family survive and supplement their food and income by selling their goods.

References:

Child Labor: Global Estimates 2020, Trends and The Way Forward 

The children who work often come from a rural region. Between the 122.7 million rural and 37.3 million urban working children, there is a higher rate of exploitation of child labor in rural communities. This is because families require their children to work in the family business, such as farming, to add an extra set of hands to help make ends meet. Without help, these families face financial destruction or poverty. In urban environments, family members can access more job opportunities to make extra money, but these job alternatives are scarce in rural communities. 

References:

Child labour In Agriculture (IPEC)  

In the United States of America, during the Industrial Revolution, it was common for children to join the workforce to supply their families with more income. While the U.S. continues to use technologies that have replaced jobs in manufacturing industries, developing countries do not. Transnational companies may provide jobs, but people are forced to take these jobs, knowing there are only so many alternatives. This leads to a cycle of poverty where families can't afford to quit their low-paying, hazardous jobs. Today, families in developing countries continue to use child labor to afford necessities like food and shelter. Also, with the industrial shift, developing countries still have most of their economies driven by agriculture, and family's livelihoods rely on farming. Children play a role as workers to help their families survive. This is much like the Western world's economic norm before industrialization and the economic shift to manufacturing.

References:

The World Bank Economic Review, 17(2), 175–196.