Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

Reasons Behind Poor Families Having Children

Especially in developing countries, overpopulation has become a social and economic problem. This paper will examine the cultural and economic components that drive people in developing countries to reproduce more than what might be financially viable for them, and how this situation might be addressed. Research suggests that, socially, there are two main reasons that impoverished families have large numbers of children. The first is because there is a societal expectation that many children will die in infancy, even though medical advances have greatly decreased the infant mortality rate in recent years. Second, parents view children as potential safeguards against being abandoned in their senior years. Interestingly, in this instance, poverty could be considered the driving factor in having children. The literature also suggests that government-led initiatives, like the one-child policy in China, are able to expedite resource redistribution to lower income families, as well as promote vertical social mobility for only children, due to more resources being reserved for them. This paper will examine the validity of government-initiated policy in a number of developing countries, and also try to mitigate policies that result in an ultimate population decline, like in Japan, which has economic implications of its own.