Eco. 362–Development Economics II (Discussion Quiz 1 on the World Bank and Programme Lending–29-3-2021)

Reason why the poor have more children than the rich can be attributed to the following:

1. No knowledge of family planning among the poor: As a result of this, many poor people continue given birth to children uncontrollably.

2. Lack of formal education: it has been observed the poor that lacks formal education lacks some necessary knowledge of raising a standard family. Therefore the do anything the want, the way the feel.

3. Some of the poor are peasant farmers: As a result of this, they tend to give birth to more children so that more hands can actually work on the farms.

Consequences of the above actions of the poor:

1: High population and high death rate: when one continue to breed children without having the necessary resources to train them it can lead to increase in death rate, reason being that an minor sickness can easily wipe off those children because their parents don’t have the money for hospital bills.

2: increase in crime rate: majority of the poor children goes out to seek for illegal means to earn. So many of them join arm robbery group, cultism, and many other secret groups.

3. Increase in corruption Hamper development: when Arm robbery groups increases, rapists increases, cultism increases. All these attributes avert development of a country.

OGUNDARE ABISOLA HELEN
2017?249546
ECONOMICS

The poor tend to have more children than the rich because there exist a negative relationship between income and number of children, i.e the higher the income the lower the number of children vice versa. This is true because a couple with a paid job or business oriented ( i.e the rich) allocate little time to sex rather than an unemployed couple with no business orientation as well( the poor).
It’s is also noticed that the industrialized nations with higher per capital income has lesser children per family than developing nations with low per capital income.

NAME: MBAH CHIEBONAM
REG NO: 2017/249525
DEPT: ECONOMICS

REASONS WHY THE POOR HAVE MORE CHILDREN.
There are obvious reasons why the poor families have more children than the rich in our societies today which includes the following :
Firstly, Lack of Proper Education; Girls who marry and begin their families in adolescence are much less likely to finish school and go on to model educational values for their children. They are also likely to have more kids, making it difficult to afford the cost of education for each child. On the other hand, women who go further in their education tend to have fewer children. They often marry later in life and are more likely to prioritize their own children’s education, understanding the financial investment it will require.
Secondly, Misconceptions about family planning; In many communities, stigmas against contraception still exist. These beliefs can originate from a variety of sources, including breakdowns in public health education, cultural biases and even scepticism about the motives of the government in controlling family size.
Thirdly, High child mortality rates; These factors contribute to child mortality and parents in poverty; Limited access to clean water, not enough nutritious food,inadequate housing, poor health care, little or no government support etc.According to the World Health Organization, 5.4 million children under five are dying every year, with most of these children in developing countries like Nigeria. Faced with this reality, parents may have more kids, understanding the heartbreaking truth that some of their children simply won’t survive.
Fourthly, Religious beliefs. In many faiths, children are seen as an enormous blessing. Religious texts and scripture can enforce this idea and often act as a strong guiding influence in people’s lives.When a life philosophy is engrained in the belief that your offspring will be provided for and that children are incredible gifts, it stands to reason that couples would embrace the idea of a large family.
Also Social reputation; In a culture or community where children are viewed as blessings, the larger the family—the more blessed you are. In many parts of the Global South, couples without children are stigmatized and looked down upon. Big families are viewed as powerful and if a woman is unable to bear children, it’s not uncommon for her husband to abandon her or begin a family with someone else
Finally, Low source of income and Care for elders; Families in poverty, particularly those who make their living through agriculture, may have more kids as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children are often tasked with chores like walking to collect water, gardening, field work and animal care, even when they’re very young. In more dire situations, children may enter the labour force—often illegally—to earn more income for the family’s survival. As children grow up, they not only carry on their family’s legacy, but also the responsibility of providing for and protecting their parents and siblings. This is especially important in countries without strong governmental safety nets. In these cases, having more kids may provide an extra sense of security for parents, with the added hope that one day, one or more children may be successful enough to lift the entire family out of poverty.

NAME: Uwode Joy Ogheneyonle
REG NO: 2017/241451
DEPARTMENT: Economics
EMAIL: yonlejoyuwode@gmail.com

Reasons the poor bear more children than the rich:
1.Care for elders
The poor parents believed that having more children will help provide a very good health care in the future. In some developing countries, the government doesn’t provide a pension or social security benefit, so parents must rely on their children to care for them in their old age. Couples may choose to have large families to ensure they are supported when they’re older. For example, in Nigeria, children and grandchildren are legally required to provide food, accommodation, and health care for their parents if they are unable to provide for themselves.

2. Need for extra labour
The poor live in area that they can at least sustain themselves either through menial job or farming. More than 70 per cent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, with most families depending on labour-intensive agriculture to survive. In these communities, there can be a cultural expectation to have big families to combat their need for extra labour. Usually, farmers who live off their harvest can’t afford to pay extra labourers and can only depend on themselves and their children. For them, a large family might be the only assurance for survival.

3.Cultural and superstitious belief
In some communities, they believe that large family is a wealthy family. They see children as a future blessings and source of wealth. In a culture or community where children are viewed as blessings, the larger the family—the more blessed you are. In many parts of Nigeria, couples without children are stigmatized and looked down upon. Big families are viewed as powerful and if a woman is unable to bear children, it’s not uncommon for her husband to abandon her or begin a family with someone else.
Furthermore, poor parents perceived that they are financially constrained in training and provision of good nutrition that will sustain the child life, so they believe that the child can die at any time, that is high child mortality. This made them to have more of it believing that some will at least survive.

4. Family legacy
The poor have the belief that if they don’t have more children, poverty will wipe away they family lineage. For many, the desire to preserve lineage, history and a family name can feel like a natural, human instinct. It’s not uncommon for parents to be partial to passing on their own genetics to continue their family legacy. This, is mostly common among the poor parents.

5. Limited income
Families in poverty, particularly those who make their living through agriculture, may have more kids as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children are often tasked with chores like walking to collect water, gardening, field work and animal care, even when they’re very young. In more dire situations, children may enter the labour force often illegally to earn more income for the family’s survival.

6. Lack of jobs and recreational activities
The rich usually have a job that give them little or no time for family procreation. Even little time they have they will engage it in recreational activities such as weekend vacation, field trip, games and watching television and listening to news. In the case of the poor is opposite, they don’t have good standard of living. They have more time for themselves and family procreation.

The positive effect of having a large number of children:
Poor parents believe in diversity gift of children. Large families have the advantage of utilizing each family member’s strengths in daily life. Children come with their own personalities and skills. Some are quiet, some loud; some are kind and caring, some bold and independent; some may love music or sports; some kids are culinary gurus, while some may have inventive ideas. Pulling from everyone’s skills can make family life more enjoyable and fulfilling.

Utilize this diversity in family problem solving, planning trips or trying to generate ideas. Each unique person will have something new and different to contribute. Not only will each person feel needed and wanted, but they will also each develop a strong sense of self. Each personality can be fun to get to know and love.

The Negative effects:
Poor large family will result to large poverty. Poor children are like free rancher, they move around without being controlled and as a result engage in so many social vices such as stealing, public vandalization, smoking etc. Larger families are more frequent with early marriage and rapid birth of the first child. In larger families, child rearing becomes more rule ridden, less individualized, with corporal punishment and less investment of resources. Smaller families tend to result in higher IQ, academic achievement, and occupational performance. Large families produce more delinquents and alcoholics. Perinatal morbidity and mortality rates are higher in large families as birth weights decrease. Mothers of large families are at higher risk of several physical diseases. At times such mother look more older than her age.

NWACHUKWU MARYJANE
2017/249533
ECONOMICS
300level

It is quiet unfortunate that despite effort made by the world Bank organization to help develop health, family planing, good nutrition and education, many Africans still found themselves in the menace of high population growth as result of high birth rate.
The following in my opinion are the reason why the poor have more children than the reach base on my observations:

1. Illiteracy or lgnorance: Those who are uneducated tend to stick to the acient believe that large family size increase family labour which will inturn lead to increase in wealth.

2. Limited access to contraceptives and ignorant of available family planning. Those who lack basic education are not aware of this birth control substances and some who are aware of it because of fear of future implementations or side effects refuse to embrace it.

3. Search for a particular child gender: It is a Norm in a traditional African society that a man must have atleast a male child who will succeed him after his demise, as a result of this absence of a male child in most family means continuous reproduction untill a male child surfaces.

4. Idleness/unemployment: couple who are not employed are likely to have more children as they continue to enjoy each other’s company without considering the implications.

5. Family pressure: Some family with few siblings as result of death or delay in child bearing may sometimes disagree with family members who want to have fewer children. This can be attributed to the popular Igbo saying “Maduka” or “Igwe bu ike”, as result of this family pressure couple may decide to have more children just to please the family members.

Consequences of this is that parents who have more children find it difficult to give maximum attention to each child as there attention are divinded between many children and this could lead to lost of parent child relationship.Ulike in weathy homes where there are fewer children.

Name: Ijara Peter Elochukwu
Department: Economics
Reg no: 2017/249513

It has been noticed that the poor tend to have larger families than the rich.Poverty has a devastating effect for people living in it. Poor parents are likely to breed poor children who are likely to be poor as adults, to drop out of school and because teenage parents.
They are many reasons why they prefer to have large families, they include but not limited to:

▪️ Early marriage: In many developing countries, a woman’s primary role is to be a wife and mother. This means, the woman gets to marry at a younger age and begins having children immediately. In developing countries, one in every three girls is married before age 18. Married girls are often under pressure to become pregnant which typically means an end to the girl’s education and all other of her life choices. This will certainly help perpetuate the cycle of poverty.

▪️ High child mortality rate has been a major reason for the preference of many children by poor parents. Due to chronic poverty and inadequate access to good nutrition and health care the poor have numerous children with the hope that few children will survive until adulthood and break the family’s poverty. In Burkina Faso 8.5% of children will die before 5 years.

▪️ Preservation of Family legacy: It is the desire to preserve the lineage, history and family name. They give birth in enormous numbers for their offspring to take up and continue their family legacy.

▪️ Most poor families engage in agriculture and have preference for more kids in order to support the family’s livelihood. They children are often used for agricultural and menial labour like cutting bushes, harvesting crops, laying up barns, ploughing, gardening

▪️ Providing care and basic necessities for the elderly is a reason for preference over many children. In Nigeria with an almost non- existent welfare system the poor want large families so that someone will take care of them in old age.

However large number of children can be beneficial in some ways.
▪️ The large families supply labour that if positively employed can lead to economic growth and development in Nigeria.
▪️ Large families provide psychological reassurance to individuals that they’re not alone.
▪️ Siblings act as protectors to one another.
The negatives effects of the poor having large families include
▪️ Teenage pregnancy: girls born into poverty tend to get teenage pregnancy than girls born into richer families.
▪️ Greater crime rates and unemployment is a negative effect of poor people having numerous children. Since they’re unable to cater for the basic necessities of their children like food, education, clothing, shelter and housing these children turn to crime and drug abuse. And because they’re more likely not to have a decent education this renders them unemployable or if they do get employment are limited to menial jobs.
▪️ Poor access to health care and health problems: because poor women hardly have access to adequate care before, during and after pregnancy this takes a toll on their bodies and their store of iron and other bodily minerals more likely to be depleted. Of course the health of their babies and children is not any better.
▪️ Inadequate education and schooling: poor parents hardly have a penny to send their children to school and so therefore their children are rendered unemployable. They grow up in poor neighborhoods that don’t even have good schools and other basic amenities.
▪️ Housing and homelessness/ overcrowding in the home: this is a common feature in poor homes, children grow up in rundown and dilapidated homes, they are more prone to risk of assault, abuse and rape. The children don’t even have the luxury of space to develop properly since the house is overcrowded.
▪️ Poor diet. Many poor people cannot even afford to feed 3 times a day combine with the foods they eat lack the basic nutrients needed for a strong and healthy body little wonder they are more prone to illness than well fed families.
▪️ High maternal death is a recurrent feature of having large families as so many women die at childbirth since they have little or no access to health care during pregnancy. Teenage mothers are far at greater risk since their pelvis is not fully developed.
▪️ Greater female illiteracy rate: often times once these poor women get pregnant any chance at education is also terminated.
▪️ Having large number of children places financial stress on the poor parents as inadequate resources will have to be split among more children.
▪️ The poor are at greater risk of domestic violence, divorce and other family problems. The stress of running a family and catering for children can put immense pressure on a family and trigger violence and other family problems. Low self esteem and antisocial behaviour is a common characteristics among poor children.

Ugwoke Cornelius Esomchi
2017/249581

Reason why poor people have more children than the rich people.
EARLY MARRIAGE AND GENDER ROLE: In some community, the poor give out their daughters’ hand in marriage at early age say 16years because they believe that women education ends in the kitchen of her husband, therefore they don’t train their daughters’ in school. Once the girl gets married at that early age with their sole aim of producing offspring which they believe is the main role of women when they get married, this means that before she will get to her menopause, she must have giving birth to as many children as possible while the rich do not engage their daughters into early marriage because they want their daughter to attain quality education. Talking about gender role, the poor families, mostly especially those ones in the rural area, who are more particular about a male child would not stop giving birth until they get male child. Their reason .right be that they don’t want their lineage to end.
NEED FOR EXTRA LABOUR: Another reason why the poor give birth to many children is to assist them in domestic chores like washing, sweeping, cleaning etc. and most importantly to assist them in farm work and to make things easy for them. They believed that the number of children they have will determine how easy and fast the work will be. Their aim is to produce as many children as possible which will assist them.
CARE FOR ELDERS: The poor give birth to many children because they want them to take care of them at old age. They want to be Surrounded by so many people at old age who will always be around at all time. They believe that if they give birth to one child or two children, they won’t be able to take care of them like when they are many children. For instance, if they are many, when one or two is not around or busy, the other once will be available for them.
Consequentially, the poor people might end up not training their children to the expected level of education because they don’t have enough money. The children on the other hand might end up as betters on the street or as street boys and girls and this can practically lead increased crime in the society. From the rich peoples side, they will have to look people they will employ in other to help them with some minor chores which would easily done if there were more hands.

Okoye Kingsley Chigozie
Economics
2017/249561
Okoyekingsley93@gmail.com
The poor has the tendency to make more babies because it is like an achievement of sought – the way the rich looks at their assets. The more the children, the probability of at least one of them breaking out from the vicious cycle of poverty is a major consideration. It is assumed that when this occurs, the chances of the success of a member of the family having a positive multiplier effect on others should be the case. Considerations are basically not opined on statistics or the prevailing economic reality. The rule of thumb and the populist generalisation amongst their ranks is what major decisions are based, and sadly so.

Religion, belief systems (culture and traditions) and education to a larger extent helps determine and influence the number of children by the poor. The first two aforementioned; have a major upward influence in this regard (children) on the poor. Only education stands out, in that, it not only guarantees freedom from irrational decision making, but may also break up the shackles of poverty itself – when one is really focused, if I may add. There is no telling the resolve of the informed and determined mind, all things being equal.

For wealthy people, the reverse is almost the case. But for some reasons, especially religious and cultural ones. The rich are also guilty of having more children. It doesn’t matter how highly educated they are, the intervening influences of culture and religion supersedes that of education. However, the propensity for the rich to breed more children can be summed up as negligible vis-a-vis the poor.

The positive effect of the high number of children born by the poor if well managed and developed is increased human capital which would lead to increase in productivity of the economy.
The negative effect for the high number of children born by the poor is lack of formal jobs due to the unemployability of the people from poor parents who did not have access to education. It would also lead to increase in crime rate in the country

Name:Eze Udoka Chidiebube
Reg no:2017/242428
Dept: Economics

High child mortality rates. Imagine living in a place where your children’s lives are constantly threatened. There’s not enough nutritious food, limited access to clean water, inadequate housing, poor health care and minimal government support. All of these factors contribute to child mortality and parents in poverty know this keenly.
Misconceptions about family planning. In many communities, stigmas against contraception still exist. These beliefs can originate from a variety of sources, including breakdowns in public health education, cultural biases and even scepticism about the motives of the government in controlling family size. Often, they contribute to the cultivation of fear and confusion over using certain family planning methods.
Lack of access to health services. It’s not always misconceptions that prevent people from practicing family planning—sometimes it’s the lack of accessible health care.[3] For some, health clinics are located far from their homes and villages, making it difficult to travel to get needed support. In especially rural areas, a lack of infrastructure, roads and transportation can also be a barrier toward receiving professional medical care.
Patriarchal values. To Canadians, having fewer children—or no children—is an increasingly familiar norm and the conversation around women’s reproductive rights is one that’s top of mind. But in many countries, the severity and pervasiveness of patriarchal values is still an overwhelming reality. In these circumstances, men can often make the decisions for their wives and families, including whether or not to use contraception.
Forced early marriage. Forced early marriage is any marriage where either person is under 18 and hasn’t given their full consent to be married.[5] It happens for many reasons and teenage girls are by far the most vulnerable. When a girl is married young, her childbearing years start much earlier, meaning—among other complications—she’s likely to have more kids. .
CONSEQUENCES
When considering health inequalities, children growing up in poverty or in the most deprived areas are at greater risk of poorer health outcomes than children from better off families or from more affluent areas.
This can be seen in
higher infant mortality rate
low birthweight
risk of being overweight or obese
not being breastfed
tooth decay
unintentional injury
poorer general health and mental wellbeing
teenage pregnancy.
Poverty is also a risk factor for experiencing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Having high numbers of ACEs has been found to be related to deprivation with a higher proportion of people in the most deprived areas reporting ACEs.
Educational outcomes
Children from low income households and disadvantaged areas tend to have worse outcomes than their better-off peers in terms of cognitive development and school achievement. This can impact upon educational outcomes.
Although many children living in disadvantaged circumstances do well in school, there is a clear gradient in educational attainment by deprivation, and a persistent gap between the most and least deprived areas.
From as early as primary one and right through to leaving school, children from deprived areas tend to do worse in terms of early Curriculum for Excellence or doing well in reading, writing and numeracy.
However, there are many factors that can positively impact on educational attainment for children experiencing poverty. These include
parental engagement with a child’s education
good quality preschool education
extra-curricular support during school time.

Name: Assi kaetti Marian
Reg number: 2017/241454
Dept: Economics
Email: Kaettimarian@gmail.com

Reason why the poor families in Nigeria give birth to more children unlike the rich families.
The Following are a few reasons.
▪️ The extremely High child mortality rate has been a major reason for giving birth to more children by poor parents. Because of abject poverty and inadequate access to good nutrition and health care, the poor families tend to have numerous children with the hope that few children will survive until adulthood and break the vicious cycle of poverty.
▪️ No or Limited access to education and illiteracy has been a major determinant of large families. Most of them are not aware of the negative consequences that follows in giving birth to many children in a short time span such as inability to carter for all of them. This leads to malnutrition and sometimes death.
▪️ Early marriages and gender roles plays a role in the more having more children. In Nigeria, it’s estimated that more than 44 percent of girls get married before age 18 and immediately they start birthing children.
▪️ Most Poor women cannot afford contraceptives or get informed about it. About 211 million women in poor countries (mostly in Nigeria) desire to delay or stop childbearing but don’t have access to contraceptives. Also the stigma about contraceptives still abound due to poor health education, religious and cultural biases and scepticism about government motives in controlling the population growth rate.
▪️ Caring for the Elderly is a reason for preference over many children. In Nigeria with an almost non- functional welfare system people grow large families so that they can be taken care of by some of their children.

POSITIVE EFFECTS OF THE POOR HAVING LARGE FAMILIES
There are some positive effects of poor people having numerous children. The following are a few reasons
1) Increase labour supply upon employment. This leads to economic growth and development.
2) Large families provide psychological reassurance to individuals that they’re not alone.
NEGATIVE EFFECTS
The negative effects of having the poor having large families cannot be over emphasized.
▪️ Early Teenage pregnancy: girls born into poverty tend to get teenage pregnancy than there counterparts born into rich homes
▪️ Increased crime rates and unemployment is a negative effect of poor people having numerous children. Since they’re unable to cater for the basic necessities of their children like food, education, clothing, shelter and housing these children turn to crime and drug abuse. ▪️ Poor access to health care and health problems: because poor women hardly have access to adequate care before, during and after pregnancy this takes a toll on their bodies and their store of iron and other bodily minerals more likely to be depleted. Of course the health of their babies and children is not any better.
▪️ Inadequate education and schooling: poor parents hardly have enough money to send their children to school and so therefore their children are rendered unemployable. They grow up in poor neighborhoods lacking basic amenities and education.

ASIKA JOY OGECHUKWU
2017/242025
Economics dept
joy.asika.242025@unn.edu.ng
Many poor people marry early both on the side of the woman and the man because they have little or no education or sensitization on such issues which makes them give birth without trying to apply family planning or the use of contraceptive. Some poor persons have many children because of their cultural and religious teachings and values which they have been indoctrinated with and this makes them skeptical about family planning and it’s side effectlike bleeding some believe they would find it difficult to conceive again. In some cultures and religious settings, they are against family planning stating that people should give birth as God has given them and not try to disobey God as stated in the scriptures (Gen 1 vs 22).
Although they try to adhere to such beliefs but it’s affecting them adversely because their resources are insufficient to manage and cater for their large families such as providing them with the essential needsquality education, clothing and shelther which makes the children also grow up to have limited source of income making the poverty cycle to continue to rotate

Francis Chibuezem David
2017/241445
francischibuezem247@gmail.com

Some of the reasons why the poor have more children than the rich are;
1. Religion
Some religions encourage child bearing and discourage the use of contraceptives. With this idealogy, most of these poor couples whose source of direction is their religion engage in continuous sex without contraceptives and leading to high child birth.
2. Extra labour
Poor families believe that since they do not have money to employ house helps or labourers in the place of work, they should give birth to as many children as possible who will help them in house chores and even in their business places. This thought is a very wrong one because they see their immediate problems and think that they have a solution to it by having more children because they don’t pay these children salaries as they will pay a house help. But the question is do they actually not pay these children salaries? Though they might not directly pay salaries, but they feed them, they clothe them, take them to school and a whole lot more but they don’t see these disadvantages, rather they are blinded by their need.
3. High mortality rate
In places where the mortality rate (death rate) is very high, most times children are mostly affected by the pandemic or effect of such and with such mindset, this could lead to couples becoming parents to many children just Incase one dies, they will not be left without more children.
4. Limited access to education
When a community or society, has very little access to education, they will be more ignorant and will have no value or concern for family planning given that they have no idea what it is or even the use
Large number of children in family might be profitable to some extent in a family and society in the sense that they have more labour and later on in life, if they all do well, that will be an extra benefit to the family, but this is a very little benefit compared to the negative effects which include more expenditure which when it’s not handled will lead to having hoodlums who later terroriser the society because they lack proper training or upbringing and they have no skill which can secure them a Job
In my own view, the negative effects of poorer families having larger families are far greater than the positive effect

NAME: OKEKE JUDE CHIMOBI

REG NO: 2017/249556

DEPARTMENT: ECONOMICS

1) Lack of education – There is no family planning. The resources available to provide for the family, and the health effects of bearing so many children on the woman – such things are rarely considered.

2) Birth control – Low income families often don’t have sufficient exposure to contraceptives, or do not give merit to birth control methods. This is changing now though, as people are gradually getting more aware.

3)The desire to have a son – People still wish for a male child, who’d uplift them out of poverty and look after them in old age. Couples keep conceiving in hopes of a boy.

4) More hands – There is a general shortcoming since parents fail to view more children as ‘more mouths to feed’. Instead, they perceive ‘more hands that can earn’.

5) Religion & culture – Religion and culture leave far greater impressions on the poor. Thus the poor might never consider abortions, or follow scientific birth control if their place of worship forbids it. Likewise, if the society accords a low status to women, they could be viewed as nothing more than baby-making machines.

6) Healthcare – Lack of sanitation and unavailability of general healthcare were the reason why a lot of poor children often didn’t make it beyond the age of five. Crime in poorer neighborhoods is frequent too. Death takes a human toll on families, but also encourages having more children in the hopes of their making it to adulthood despite the odds.

NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF HAVE MANY CHILDREN

1) OVER POPULATION
We are just being deliberately blind to reality. It has been shown clearly in the Asian countries there is no country classified as developed that has not moderated its population. If one person is telling another to reproduce recklessly, to me, it is a crime to the state.

2) BRAIN DRAIN
There are many qualified persons, but too few jobs. People cannot get jobs, either in the public or private sector. Those who are not highly skilled for jobs that are available are forced to look for another source of income or go abroad. There is no way the public and private sectors can absorb the huge numbers of trained graduates.

3) RISKY BIRTHS
Apart from the issue of having too many children, one of the more pressing concerns is the health risk to the mother. That risk is a combination of maternal death and infant death. Fertility affects health mainly because certain types of births are exceptionally risky.

Udeh Amarachi M.
2017/249576
Maryamarachi2010@gmail.com
Maryudeh.blogspot.com
Reason why poor people have more children than the rich people.
EARLY MARRIAGE AND GENDER ROLE: In some community, the poor give out their daughters’ hand in marriage at early age say 16years because they believe that women education ends in the kitchen of her husband, therefore they don’t train their daughters’ in school. Once the girl gets married at that early age with their sole aim of producing offspring which they believe is the main role of women when they get married, this means that before she will get to her menopause, she must have giving birth to as many children as possible while the rich do not engage their daughters into early marriage because they want their daughter to attain quality education. Talking about gender role, the poor families, mostly especially those ones in the rural area, who are more particular about a male child would not stop giving birth until they get male child. Their reason .right be that they don’t want their lineage to end.
NEED FOR EXTRA LABOUR: Another reason why the poor give birth to many children is to assist them in domestic chores like washing, sweeping, cleaning etc. and most importantly to assist them in farm work and to make things easy for them. They believed that the number of children they have will determine how easy and fast the work will be. Their aim is to produce as many children as possible which will assist them.
CARE FOR ELDERS: The poor give birth to many children because they want them to take care of them at old age. They want to be Surrounded by so many people at old age who will always be around at all time. They believe that if they give birth to one child or two children, they won’t be able to take care of them like when they are many children. For instance, if they are many, when one or two is not around or busy, the other once will be available for them.
Consequentially, the poor people might end up not training their children to the expected level of education because they don’t have enough money. The children on the other hand might end up as betters on the street or as street boys and girls and this can practically lead increased crime in the society. From the rich peoples side, they will have to look people they will employ in other to help them with some minor chores which would easily done if there were more hands.

NAME: Anachuna Cynthia Chisom
REG: 2017/249481
EMAIL:chisomcynthia4247@gmail.com.
Some of the reasons why the poor have more children than the rich include, Child mortality rate. Due to lack of enough nutritious food, clean water etc. The life of the children are threatened. So they try to have as much children as possible, knowing fully well that some of their children will not survive. Forced early marriage is also one of the reasons why the poor have more children. Another reason is lack of Education. One who is not educated and doesn’t know the value or importance of Education will give birth to as much children as possible, without considering the cost of education for each child. Religious beliefs, in so many faiths children are seen as great blessings. So, people who are part of these faiths would embrace the idea of having more children. Social reputation, in a community where children are viewed as blessings, that is the more children you have, the more blessed you are. You will find out that members of that community will want to have as much children as possible. There are some other reasons such as family legacy, limited finances, care for elders etc.
This act of giving birth to numerous children by the poor have its consequences (both negative and positive)
Generally in the economy as a whole, it leads to increase in labor force, thereby leading to increase in productivity in the economy.
Increase in unemployment rate, in a country like Nigeria where there is very low job opportunity, increase in labor force will lead to increase in The level of unemployment.
Illiteracy, since the poor give birth to children they cannot properly cater for eg by giving them standard education. This will lead to increase in the level of illiteracy in the country.
Increase in crime rate. Due to high unemployment rate, people will start to engage in so many illegal activities such as yahoo, armed robbery etc In Order to survive.

Name: Okam Oluchukwu christopher
Dept: Economics
Reg No: 2017/249553

Why The Poor Have More Children Than The Rich
Some of the reasons why the poor have more children than the rich are explained below.

1. High child mortality rates. Imagine living in a place where your children’s lives are constantly threatened. There’s not enough nutritious food, limited access to clean water, inadequate housing, poor health care and minimal government support. All of these factors contribute to child mortality and parents in poverty know this keenly. According to the World Health Organization, 5.4 million children under five are dying every year, with most of these children in developing countries. Faced with this reality, parents may have more kids, understanding the heartbreaking truth that some of their children simply won’t survive.
2. Misconceptions about family planning. In many communities, stigmas against contraception still exist. These beliefs can originate from a variety of sources, including breakdowns in public health education, cultural biases and even scepticism about the motives of the government in controlling family size. Often, they contribute to the cultivation of fear and confusion over using certain family planning methods.
3. Lack of access to health services. It’s not always misconceptions that prevent people from practicing family planning—sometimes it’s the lack of accessible health care.For some, health clinics are located far from their homes and villages, making it difficult to travel to get needed support. In especially rural areas, a lack of infrastructure, roads and transportation can also be a barrier toward receiving professional medical care
4. Forced early marriage. Forced early marriage is any marriage where either person is under 18 and hasn’t given their full consent to be married.It happens for many reasons and teenage girls are by far the most vulnerable. When a girl is married young, her childbearing years start much earlier, meaning—among other complications—she’s likely to have more kids.
5.Lack of education. Girls who marry and begin their families in adolescence are much less likely to finish school and go on to model educational values for their children. They are also likely to have more kids, making it difficult to afford the cost of education for each child.On the other hand, women who go further in their education tend to have fewer children. They often marry later in life and are more likely to prioritize their own children’s education, understanding the financial investment it will require.
6. Religious beliefs. In many faiths, children are seen as an enormous blessing. Religious texts and scripture can enforce this idea and often act as a strong guiding influence in people’s lives.When a life philosophy is engrained in the belief that your offspring will be provided for and that children are incredible gifts, it stands to reason that couples would embrace the idea of a large family.
7. Social reputation. In a culture or community where children are viewed as blessings, the larger the family—the more blessed you are. In many parts of the Global South, couples without children are stigmatized and looked down upon. Big families are viewed as powerful and if a woman is unable to bear children, it’s not uncommon for her husband to abandon her or begin a family with someone else
8.Family legacy. For many, the desire to preserve lineage, history and a family name can feel like a natural, human instinct. It’s not uncommon for parents to be partial to passing on their own genetics to continue their family legacy.
9. Limited finances. Families in poverty, particularly those who make their living through agriculture, may have more kids as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children are often tasked with chores like walking to collect water, gardening, field work and animal care, even when they’re very young. In more dire situations, children may enter the labour force—often illegally—to earn more income for the family’s survival.
10. Care for elders. As children grow up, they not only carry on their family’s legacy, but also the responsibility of providing for and protecting their parents and siblings. This is especially important in countries without strong governmental safety nets. In these cases, having more kids may provide an extra sense of security for parents, with the added hope that one day, one or more children may be successful enough to lift the entire family out of poverty.

Name: Idoko Ukamaka Blessing
Dept: Economics
Reg No: 2017/249510
email: idokoukamaka0701@gmail.com

Why The Poor Have More Children Than The Rich
Some of the reasons why the poor have more children than the rich are explained below.
1. High child mortality rates: Because child mortality rates in the developing world are so high, parents may intentionally have large families because the grim reality is that sometimes children don’t survive. In Burkina Faso, a shocking 8.5 percent of children will die before reaching their fifth birthday; in Haiti, it’s 6.7 per cent. For comparison, in Australia, the same figure is 0.4 per cent.
2. Limited access to education
Generally, the higher the degree of education and GDP per capita a country has, the lower the birth rate. In Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest countries, less than one-third of the country can competently read and write . Here, the average number of kids a mum has is between five and six. In Australia, where the literacy rate is 99 per cent, the average couple has 1.77 children. Women with some formal education are more likely than uneducated women to use contraception, marry later, and have fewer children. There are a few reasons why education is connected to a lower birth rate:
Increasing girls’ participation in school over time also decreases fertility rates. An educated woman is likely to marry at a later age and
have fewer children. A study in Guatemala found that for eachadditional year a young woman spent in school, the age at which she had her first child was delayed approximately six to 10 months. Educating girls also helps women control how many children they have. UNESCO estimates 60 per cent fewer teenage girls in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia would become pregnant if they all had a
secondary education.
3. Early marriage and gender roles
In some countries, a woman’s role is expected to be as a wife and mother. This may often mean she gets married younger and begins having children sooner. In developing countries, one in every three
girls is married before age 18 . Married girls are often under pressure to become pregnant as soon as possible. This typically means an end to a girl’s education, which can limit her life choices and help perpetuate the cycle of poverty.
4. Limited access to contraception
An estimated 225 million women in developing countries would like to delay or stop childbearing, but are not using any method of contraception. Most of these women live in the poorest countries on earth. In Africa, one in four women of reproductive age have an unmet need for modern contraception. This is due to many reasons, including limited information, options of contraceptive methods and access to contraception, or cultural or religious opposition and poor quality of available services. Supply chains often don’t extend to remote or rural areas, where families in extreme poverty tend to live.
5. Care for elders
In some developing countries, the government doesn’t provide a pension or social security benefit, so parents must rely on their children to care for them in their old age. Couples may choose to have large families to ensure they are supported when they’re older. For example, in India, children and grandchildren are legally required to provide food, accommodation, and health ocare for their parents if they are unable to
provide for themselves.
6. Need for extra labour
More than 70 per cent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, with most families depending on labour-intensive agriculture to survive. In these communities, there can be a cultural expectation to have big families to combat their need for extra labour. Usually, farmers who live off their harvest can’t afford to pay extra labourers and can only depend on themselves and their children. For them, a large family might be the only assurance for survival.
7. Religion
Religious beliefs may mean a family chooses not to use contraceptives. In Latin America, social norms and religious tradition mean family planning services
aren’t available to many communities. Affordable options for accessing contraception and health care for remote or rural communities are in short supply. A couple’s family size is their own personal decision and our local staff would never seek to denigrate it. As part of our Mums and Babies critical intervention, local staff share family planning methods in a culturally appropriate way so parents can make informed decisions.

Consequences Of Large Family Size
There are many consequences associated with having large family size and some of these are;
1. Increasing social vices: When parents have large number of children without the means of caring for them or sustaining them, such children are prone to many social vices such as stealing, robbery, kidnapping, prostitution etc. This proves the increase or rising social vices in our country today.
2. Increasing Child Labour: many children are forced into labor in order to assist the family since the parents cannot provide the adequately for the family. Thus children are seen in all corners of the country Hawking one item or the other in order to support the family.
3. Child Mortality: the little money that could have been used to care for few children are divided to provide for numerous children (mainly for feeding), which is not even enough. Meeting medical needs when the time arrives becomes impossible, and lack of access to medical facility leads to child Mortality.
4. Pressure on available Social amenities: Due to increasing population, the provided social amenities are always not enough. The struggle or pressure on these amenities leads to breakdown of such good/ commodity.
5. Gives Bad Image/name to the country in question: As a result of increasing social vices, the country or region image is tarnished both locally and Internationally. For example, the increasing yahoo, kidnapping, robbery etc in Nigeria has to a great extent tarnished her image nationally and Internationally.

Name: Ugwoke, Paul Chukwuebuka
Reg no. 2017/241059
Dept. Education /Economicss

In developing countries of the world, the majority of the population are poor people with large families. In Africa and developing countries at large, there are some believe or factors that necessitate the existence of large families.
Those factors include

The believe that one’s children are the ones to take care of them in their old age : in developing countries where Government does little or nothing to help the old people, it leave the citizens with the option that it only by having a large family will be the only way to remedy his predicament, believing that if Mr. A doesn’t take care of him or her, Mr N will do it. This lead to the poor having large family not minding the situations of things in one’s country.

Lack of education. Girls who marry and begin their families in adolescence are much less likely to finish school and go on to model educational values for their children. They are also likely to have more kids, making it difficult to afford the cost of education for each child. On the other hand, women who go further in their education tend to have fewer children. They often marry later in life and are more likely to prioritize their own children’s education, understanding the financial investment it will require.

Early marriage : Children from large poor families tend to marry very early, as they see it as only way of survival. There is little or no education in a family, the girls are always available to marriage. Poor families has this believe that when they have numerous children, that one or two person will eventually marry a rich man. In other words, the poor families see a better future in having so many children.

Need for extra labour: More than 70 per cent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, with most families depending on labour-intensive agriculture to survive. In these communities, there can be a cultural expectation to have big families to combat their need for extra labour. Usually, farmers who live off their harvest can’t afford to pay extra labourers and can only depend on themselves and their children. For them, a large family might be the only assurance for survival.

Social reputation. In a culture or community where children are viewed as blessings, the larger the family—the more blessed you are. In many parts of the Global South, couples without children are stigmatized and looked down upon. Big families are viewed as powerful and if a woman is unable to bear children, it’s not uncommon for her husband to abandon her or begin a family with someone else.

Name: Ugorji Ijeoma Judith
Reg no: 2017/243088
Department: ECONOMICS
Email: peppyhijay@gmail.com
Blog: peppyxperience.blogspot.com

Why does the poor have more children than the rich.
Despite a lot of innovation in medicine and the world Bank’s global strategic efforts in ensuring moderate population and better living standard for the world in areas of education, health, peacekeeping, family planning, better environment to mention a few, the population has continued to increase especially in Africa, Asia and developing countries of the world where a great percentage of their citizen live below poverty level. Considering the pre-industrial and transition demographic stages characterised by high fertility rate, high mortality rate, high population of children and high growth rate in which most poor developing countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America belong to. It is evident that the poor have more population with children constituting a large portion of it. There are many factors ranging from cultural, religious, social and even economic factors that contribute to the poor having more children than the rich.
Looking at the cultural factors, we have;
Early marriages. In some countries, a woman’s role is perceived as a wife and mother. Therefore, once a girl child attains the age of puberty she is married off to a man to whom she plays the role of a wife and motherif his children.
Girl child education. Some cultures does not support the education of the girl child. They see it as a waste of time and resources because one day, she would be married off to a man and may never contribute financial or otherwise to her immediate family.
From the religious perspective, a large family size can be as a result of;
Polygamous practices. Some religion like the Islamic religion supports one man and numerous wife marriages. This leads to having many children.
Use of contraceptives. Some religion abhors the use of contraceptives. In Latin America, social norms and religious traditions mean family planning services are not available to many communities.
Other factors include:
High child mortality rate is a social factor that affects many developing nations. Many parents would prefer to have more children intentionally due to high child mortality rate because of the believe that children do not survive.
High level of illiteracy and ignorance. This also affects the size of family. Most poor people a less educated and hence ignorant od certain information as regards family planning. Women with more formal education are more likely to use contraceptives, marry at an older age and have fewer children.
Most developing nations are agrarians and labour intensive. More than 70% of the world’s poor live in rural areas. Families in this area are majorly agriculturist. There can be a cultural expectation to have big families to combat their need for extra labour in the farms and other menial jobs.

It’s quite unbelievable on the birth rate of most African and Asian countries. With Nigeria as a case study the perpetual and consistent increase in number of births per day is at about 250,000 with little or no adequate provisions made available to cater for the humans in addition to the numerous persons living in abject poverty and penury. These are some of the very many reasons why the poor tend to have more children than their well-to-do counterparts:
Firstly, Over the years, there has been a notion that the more children one has, the larger the care he/she would receive at old age. Though this is fallacious, people have come to think it’s true hence when they see anyone who has lesser number of children, the begin to abuse and stigmatize them.
Secondly, ‘unemployment’ has eaten deep into the narrows of a country like Nigeria, the adage ‘An idle man is the devil’s workshop’ applies. Since the poor have nothing doing, they therefore resort to making babies. Due to their unemployed state, their major source of relaxation and leisure is constant uncontrolled lovemaking which results in the making of more children whom they can barely fend for.
Since many poor people live in abject poverty, they’re not able to find themselves in schools and skill acquisition centers hence they’re not abreast with the happenings around their locality all they know is increase the population without minding if the available resources are enough to cater for the teeming population.
Due to the dilapidated structures in Nigeria, increased death rate is inevitable hence an individual will be compelled to make as many kids as possible pending how many will survive to adulthood.
The need for a particular gender can actually make a family have more children than they want to have. Most times especially in Igbo land where male children are important in order to carry on the family’s name, this can actually cause parents to give birth to many children in a situation where they are in need of a male child. A times the first 6-7 children are girls, the tendency of wanting to give birth because of the need for a male child is high.
Consequences of Having More Children.
Positive Consequences..
1. More hands are made available to ease family work load.
2. When a family is large and united there’s a sense of security that exist between them, that is they defend each other so people won’t like to look for their trouble.
3. When all the children are educated and responsible the possibility of liberating the family from poverty is high.
Negative consequences
1. High level of unemployment: In a situation where an economy is having issues with employment having more children will only increase the level of unemployment in the economy.

Nnadi Olivia ijeoma
2016/232856
Education economics
ijeoma.nnadi.232856@unn.edu.ng

The poor families or parents using Africa as a case study have more children compared to the rich parents because of
1) Fear for the future
It is believed that the more children you have the better your chance of living a well fulfilled life as you don’t know which one of the children God will use to bless you at old age. The poor parents uses this assumption as a valid point to born more. And also the poor believes the more children you have, the better your chances of not being childless in your old age incase a child dies while growing up.
2) Religious beliefs
The poor believes it’s God that gives children and it is also Him that will take care of them, man shouldn’t worry, he should just give birth to as many as possible, the number of children God gives you doesn’t matter cause He will take care of them. The poor family uses this belief as a reason to continue having more children not caring about how the children will survive based on health care, education, feeding, etc.
3) Early marriage and gender roles
A woman in Africa is expected to be a wife and mother, her place is believed to be in the kitchen. There’s no need sending the girl child to school. So at a young age, she is giving out in marriage and begin to have children early. Poor family also uses the bride price paid to take care of family issues hence the need to marry the girl child off as quickly as possible so as to take care of probably the male children.
4) Inadequate information on contraceptive and family planning methods
Right from our fore father, it is a taboo to stop the act of bearing children through pills or any methods. With this mindset and inadequate information on contraceptive methods, the poor family continues to give birth to more children.

The negative effect is felt by the children. it’s the children borne that suffers the most from hardship not the parents since the parents already left the children for the society and God to care for. There’s no positive impact for giving birth to many children without having adequate resources to cater for them. The way forward out of this is to share adequate information about family planning and contraceptive methods and with proper education this narrative of the poor will change and more importantly, giving support to girl child education.

Agbo Jennifer Amarachi
2017/249476
Economics
jenniferamarachi.agbo@gmail.com

One can say that a Child is a joy. Indeed it is true. But then is it really necessary to expand ones family when income is scarce? Why is it that the impoverished most especially tend to have a greater number of children more than the well-to-do? Well, there social, cultural, religious and Economic factors responsible for that.

In Africa most especially, the poor tend to reproduce a higher number of offspring and this why African countries have a high population. From research and studies, one can generally say that the existence of a High Child mortality rates is one of the causes.
It means that In African, Children’s lives are constantly threatened, there is not enough nutritious food, limited access to clean water, inadequate housing, minimal government support. With these realities, parents thus tend to have more kids, understanding that some of the children might not survive. Other relevant reasons are misconception about family plannings; lack of access to good health services; forced early marriages, limited finance thus families in poverty, especially those who make their living through agriculture, may have more kids as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children may enter labour force to earn more income for the family’s survival; and also for children to provide security, support protection to the parents at their old age.

Nonetheless, it is a know fact that those with high number of children tend to suffer from a poor standard of living, most of their children become school drop outs and with menial jobs, the family’s limited resources will not be enough and the struggle for that leads to conflicts and this is not healthy for a family’s prosperity.

In general, for an underdeveloped country like Nigeria, a very high population exerts pressure on the limited resources of the country and this will lead to unemployment, conflicts, poor standard of living and so on and this outcome will definitely not lead to Economic development.

However, ways to ameliorated this is tracing the cause of high population which stems from the family first. It means that the government and other bodies who can, should help in coaching families, introduce family planning, educate men and women and also strengthen the health Care system. We we we we

Name: Agbo Jennifer Amarachi
Reg No: 2017/249476
Dept: Economics
Email: jenniferamarachi.agbo@gmail.com

One can say that a Child is a joy. Indeed it is true. But then is it really necessary to expand ones family when income is scarce? Why is it that the impoverished most especially tend to have a greater number of children more than the well-to-do? Well, there social, cultural, religious and Economic factors responsible for that.

In Africa most especially, the poor tend to reproduce a higher number of offspring and this why African countries have a high population. From research and studies, one can generally say that the existence of a High Child mortality rates is one of the causes.

It means that In African, Children’s lives are constantly threatened, there is not enough nutritious food, limited access to clean water, inadequate housing, minimal government support. With these realities, parents thus tend to have more kids, understanding that some of the children might not survive. Other relevant reasons are misconception about family plannings; lack of access to good health services; forced early marriages, limited finance thus families in poverty, especially those who make their living through agriculture, may have more kids as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children may enter labour force to earn more income for the family’s survival; and also for children to provide security, support protection to the parents at their old age.

Nonetheless, it is a know fact that those with high number of children tend to suffer from a poor standard of living, most of their children become school drop outs and with menial jobs, the family’s limited resources will not be enough and the struggle for that leads to conflicts and this is not healthy for a family’s prosperity.

In general, for an underdeveloped country like Nigeria, a very high population exerts pressure on the limited resources of the country and this will lead to unemployment, conflicts, poor standard of living and so on and this outcome will definitely not lead to Economic development.

However, ways to ameliorated this is tracing the cause of high population which stems from the family first. It means that the government and other bodies who can, should help in coaching families, introduce family planning, educate men and women and also strengthen the health Care system.

Name: Agbo Jennifer Amarachi
Reg No: 2017/249476
Dept: Economics
Email: jenniferamarachi.agbo@gmail.com

One can say that a Child is a joy. Indeed it is true. But then is it really necessary to expand ones family when income is scarce? Why is it that the impoverished most especially tend to have a greater number of children more than the well-to-do? Well, there social, cultural, religious and Economic factors responsible for that.

In Africa most especially, the poor tend to reproduce a higher number of offspring and this why African countries have a high population. From research and studies, one can generally say that the existence of a High Child mortality rates is one of the causes.
It means that In African, Children’s lives are constantly threatened, there is not enough nutritious food, limited access to clean water, inadequate housing, minimal government support. With these realities, parents thus tend to have more kids, understanding that some of the children might not survive. Other relevant reasons are misconception about family plannings; lack of access to good health services; forced early marriages, limited finance thus families in poverty, especially those who make their living through agriculture, may have more kids as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children may enter labour force to earn more income for the family’s survival; and also for children to provide security, support protection to the parents at their old age.

Nonetheless, it is a know fact that those with high number of children tend to suffer from a poor standard of living, most of their children become school drop outs and with menial jobs, the family’s limited resources will not be enough and the struggle for that leads to conflicts and this is not healthy for a family’s prosperity.

In general, for an underdeveloped country like Nigeria, a very high population exerts pressure on the limited resources of the country and this will lead to unemployment, conflicts, poor standard of living and so on and this outcome will definitely not lead to Economic development.

However, ways to ameliorated this is tracing the cause of high population which stems from the family first. It means that the government and other bodies who can, should help in coaching families, introduce family planning, educate men and women and also strengthen the health Care system.

Some reasons why poor people give birth to so many children in my country:

Wealth: in the olden days many thought that having many children was the only source of wealth. when it comes to cultivation period, as they are many who are involved in farm work they tend to produce More and have many farm products (they believed the adage igwe but Ike). Which means that when they are many , they tend to have many farm outputs. so during the olden days your riches is determined by number of children you have.

Death: Some countries of the world have very high child mortality rate and my country is at the top of it. For this reason parents give birth to so many children with the hope that some would be lucky to survive to adulthood.

Poverty: Poor people lack opportunity for sex education and family planning. The government of my country has not taken family planning seriously as a means to cut down over-population, which is something we need right now. Contraceptives are like taboo in some families and communities. Couples will openly tell you ‘Condom no sweet’ and family planning is nonsense (Na God dey give pikin, children na blessing from God). Hence over-population thrive.

Quantity over quality: It is not new here in Nigeria to see or hear that half of a community belong to the same family, not only that, they all answer the same surname. This families don’t necessarily have plans for the children they give birth to, with the exception of a microscopic few. These families usually don’t care much about the education and well-being of the children but about increasing the family size for farm work or to withstand external conflicts.

2017/249492.
The poor have more children than the rich for many reasons which includes dreams.

1. Dreams-I was once privileged to learn from a well educated man who was a civil servant, have about four wives and more than 11 children that it was just his dream to have as man children as possible and even though he wasn’t earning enough to give them all formal education, he made sure that were all learning informally.

2. Lack of Family Planning- Most poor families do not go on family planning, sometimes I wonder how people can be so poor and so cruel.

3. Illiteracy- most poor families are illiterates and religious and both doesn’t go well this because even if someone should try and suggest birth control to them they would end up frowning at the idea because they strongly believe that children are gifts from God and blessings to their marriage thus, should be given birth to, as many as God sends to them there should be no hindrance between their blessings from God. And in the end they will not be able to raise these children and thus, they starts to suffer at their very young ages in life. But had it been the couples are well educated they would have a better understanding of family planning and all these troubles would be avoided.

4. Early Marriage- This is known as one of the major causes of high childbirth in marriages because the woman starts reproduction from maybe her late teens and doesn’t stop reproducing till her 40s and you can imagine how many children she would have given birth to especially if she reproduces after two years.

There are the negative effects.
1. Over population -Using the malthusian theory of population which is of the view that a nation should avoid overpopulation with less growing economy. Overpopulation with little effect on labour and economic growth puts a states in the poverty line.

2. Poverty: with the high rate of unemployment and inefficient labour supply the economy ceases to grow and develop because there are more consumers than the productions. Hunger takes it turn feeding off the children because of poor or no provisions from their poverty stricken parents.

3. Mortality rate: There is high Mortality because as there is lack of evrry basic need for hralthy living this occurs especially between the children then the women due to crrtain diseases which are not treated as there’s always lack of provisions foot the very basic needs for them to be treated because of poverty.

On the positive aspect, there’s population growth and if well placed every individual will contribute effectively in the economy creating surplus labour and efficiency in the distribution will be achieved.
This is my humble opinion Sir.

Through Out the Nation it can be seen that the poor have more children than the rich ones. Lots of Reasons are available to view from the Aspect.. I Personally laid down some reason to see why the concedes more than the rich.
1. Misconceptions about family planning
In many communities like Nigeria for instance, stigmas against contraception still exist. These beliefs can originate from a variety of sources including breakdowns in public health, education, cultural biases and even skepticism about the motives of the government in controlling family size. Often they contribute to the cultivation of fear and confusion using certain family planning methods.
2. Lack of access to health services
It is not always misconceptions that prevent people from practicing family planning sometimes, it is lack of accessible health care. For some, health clinics are located far from their homes and villages making it difficult to travel to get needed support in especially rural areas, a lack of infrastructure, roads and transportation can also be a barrier towards receiving professional medical care.
3. Forced early marriage
Forced early marriage is any marriage where either person is under 18 and has not been given their full consent to be married. It happens for many reasons and teenage girls are by far the most vulnerable. When a girl is married young, her child bearing years start much earlier, meaning- among other complications she is likely to have more children.
4. Lack of education
Girls who marry and begin their families in adolescence are likely to have more children making it difficult to afford the cost of education for each child. On the other hand, women who go further in their education tend to have fewer children, they often marry later in life and are more likely to prioritize their own children’s education, understanding the finance it will require.
5. Limited finances
Families in poverty particularly those who make their living through agriculture may have more children as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children are often tasked with chores like walking to collect water, gardening, field work and animal care, even when they are very young. In more dire situations children may enter the labour force, often illegally to earn more income for the family’s survival.
6. Family legacy
For many, the desire to preserve lineage, history and a family name can feel like a natural, human instinct. It is not common for parents to be parental to passing on their own genetics to continue their family legacy.

Name:ugwuda chidera Blessing
Reg no:2017/243804
Dept: Eco Edu
Course tittle:Eco 362

Discuss world bank and program of lending
World bank is an international organization dedicated to providing and financing advice and research to developing nations to aid their economic advancement.The Bank attempt to fight poverty by offering development assistance to middle and low income countries .It played a major role in financing investment in infrastructural project S in developing countries.The world is the world largest multilateral creditor institution and such many of the world poorest countries owe it large money .Indeed for a dozens of the most heavily part of the external debt in some cases constituting more than 50 percent is owed to the world bank and the multilateral regional development banks .The world bank developed this concept program of lending in the form of development assistance to the developing countries as a means of narrowing the gap between the rich and poor countries..
The following are the program of lending.
INVESTMENT OF LENDING
The World Bank’s investment lending (IL) has been joined in recent years by new lending instruments, whilst IL itself faces an overhaul, as the Bank’s operational policies come under review and pilots for the use of ‘country systems’ mature. The Bank is presently using four lending instruments: IL, development policy lending (DPL), Program-for-Results, and the World Bank Guarantee Program.
IL, or ‘project lending’, represents the traditional mode of Bank lending for individual projects and are the primary lending instrument of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and International Development Association (IDA), the Bank’s middle- and low-income arms, respectively.
IL incorporates loans, credits and grants for “activities aimed at creating the physical and social infrastructure necessary to reduce poverty and create sustainable development”, including “capital-intensive investments, rehabilitation and maintenance, service delivery, credit and grant delivery [including micro-credit], community-based development, and institution building”. Funds are disbursed to cover project expenditures, including pre-identified equipment, civil works, and technical and consulting services. IL may be accompanied by conditions for specific project components.
IL has a long term focus of 5 – 10 years and, during the last 20 years, has accounted for 78 to 80 per cent of the Bank’s portfolio. At present, IL represents more than 90 per cent of the Bank’s active lending portfolio, whilst accounting for roughly two-thirds of IBRD and IDA annual commitments. Since 2000, investment loans have ranged from $500,000 to $3.75 billion, averaging $83 million. In the past, IL operations have been governed by more than 30 operational policies. However, reforms are presently underway which aim at consolidating the policies, procedures and guidelines into one policy statement and an accompanying procedure statement.
DEVELOPMENT POLICY LENDING
DPL replaced adjustment lending in 2004. DPL is available in the form of rapid financial assistance to provide funding for programmes of policy and institutional actions. IDA-eligible countries get DPL in the form of grants.
The release of DPL funds is dependent on “satisfactory assessment of performance against a set of indicators in the form of institutional or policy reform measures that reflect progress in implementing a country-owned reform programme.” This conditionality is a traditional feature of Bank lending, but has been criticised for lack of sensitivity to countries’ individual contexts and a focus on liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation.
In fiscal year (FY) 2009, in response to the financial crisis, 40 per cent of Bank commitments took the form of DPL, rising from 27 per cent in 2008. IBRD DPL commitments peaked in 2010 at $20.6 billion, falling to $9.5 billion in FY 2011. IDA DPL commitments hit $2.8 billion in FY 2009, falling to $2.1 billion in FY 2011. Since 2000, development policy loans ranged from $500,000 to $2 billion, averaging $189 million.
PROGRAM-FOR-RESULTS
Program-for-Results (PforR) is a new lending instrument, which was approved by the Bank’s board in January 2012 (see Update 79). PforR ties the disbursement of funds to the achievement of tangible development results and provides direct support for government programmes in order to help countries “strengthen institutions, build capacity, and enhance partnerships with stakeholders to achieve lasting impact”. According to the Bank, PforR can provide support for a wide range of government projects, such as increased immunisation coverage for children or provision of sanitation services. Disbursements fund expenditure programmes rather than individual transactions.
The Bank will pilot the PforR instrument for two years, during which time eligibility for new operations will be limited to 5 per cent of annual IBRD and IDA lending (about $1.5 billion), and category A operations (those with the highest environmental and social risks) will be excluded. As of September, two PforR projects of $60 million and $300 million had been approved.
WORLD BANK GUARANTEE PROGRAM
The Guarantee Program offers partial guarantees of private debt, which are designed to “attract long-term commercial financing in sectors such as power, water, transport, telecom, oil and gas, and mining”. Guarantees are available to all IDA- and IBRD-eligible countries and take three forms: partial risk guarantees “cover private lenders against the risk of a public entity failing to perform its obligations with respect to a private project”; partial credit guarantees “cover private lenders against all risks during a specific period of the financing term of debt for a public investment”; and policy based guarantees “help to improve governments’ access to capital markets in support of social, institutional, and structural policies and reforms”. The guarantee instrument has evolved to include new aims such as “improving investors’ interest in privatisations”.

Country systems

The implementation of Bank projects has been managed by special units running parallel to the government’s core activities. However, the Bank is moving towards a ‘country systems’ approach, whereby Bank projects use a country’s “national, subnational, or sectoral implementing institutions and applicable laws, regulations, rules and procedures”.
Following approval by the Board in 2005, the Bank is presently undertaking a pilot programme which “explore[s] using a country’s own environmental and social safeguard systems”, across Bank lending. The pilot first applied to individual projects, but in 2008 the board approved a proposal to scale up the initiative to apply nationally and sub-nationally and launched another pilot to trial the use of country procurement systems. A 2011 update to the pilot published by the Bank, Use of country systems for environmental safeguards, recognised that the country systems pilots to date had achieved “limited success” in realising their goals of impact, ownership, donor harmonisation, simplification and cost-reduction.
ns, the private sector, and academics has informed the design of PforR.
The World Bank provides low-interest loans, zero to low-interest credits, and grants to developing countries. These support a wide array of investments in such areas as education, health, public administration, infrastructure, financial and private sector development, agriculture, and environmental and natural resource management. Some of our projects are cofinanced with governments, other multilateral institutions, commercial banks, export credit agencies, and private sector investors.

Udeh Amarachi M.
2017/249576
Maryamarachi2010@gmail.com
Maryudeh.blogspot.com
REASON THE POOR TEND TO HAVE MORE CHILDREN THAN THE RICH

EARLY MARRIAGE AND GENDER ROLE: In some community, the poor give out their daughters’ hand in marriage at early age say 16years because they believe that women education ends in the kitchen of her husband, therefore they don’t train their daughters’ in school. Once the girl gets married at that early age with their sole aim of producing offspring which they believe is the main role of women when they get married, this means that before she will get to her menopause, she must have giving birth to as many children as possible while the rich do not engage their daughters into early marriage because they want their daughter to attain quality education. Talking about gender role, the poor familes, mostly especially those ones in the rural area, who are more particular about a male child would not stop giving birth until they get male child. Their reason .right be that they don’t want their lineage to end.
NEED FOR EXTRA LABOUR: Another reason why the poor give birth to many children is to assist them in domestic chores like washing, sweeping, cleaning etc. and most importantly to assist them in farm work and to make things easy for them. They believed that the number of children they have will determine how easy and fast the work will be. Their aim is to produce as many children as possible which will assist them.
CARE FOR ELDERS: The poor give birth to many children because they want them to take care of them at old age. They want to be Surrounded by so many people at old age who will always be around at all time. They believe that if they give birth to one child or two children, they won’t be able to take care of them like when they are many children. For instance, if they are many, when one or two is not around or busy, the other once will be available for them.
Consequently, when the poor have more children their relative income might not carry the need of the family let alone training the children in school and this can lead to increased hardship.

Name: MMADU JOY UKAMAKA
DEPARTMENT: ECONOMICS
REG NO:2017/249528
EMAIL: joymmadu5@gmail.com

REASONS WHY THE IMPOVERISHED HAVE MORE KIDS THAN THE RICH
1. High child mortality rates. In many developing countries like Nigeria where the lives of the new born babies are being threatened due to some factors and important life enhacing facilities that are not in place like not having enough nutritious food, limited access to clean water, inadequate housing, poor health care and minimal government support. All of these factors contribute to child mortality andparents in poverty know this keenly. According to the World Health Organization, 5.4 million children under five are dying every year, with most of these children in developing countries. Faced with this reality, parents may decide to have more kids, understanding the heartbreaking truth that some of their children might not survive.
2. Misconceptions about family planning. In some communities, there is still cases where stigmas against contraception still exist. These beliefs can can emernate from different sources, including breakdowns in public health education, cultural biases and even scepticism about the motives of the government in controlling family size. Often, these above listed factors contributes in cultivating the fear and confusion over using
certain family planning methods.
3. Limited access to education: Generally, the higher the degree of education and GDP per capita a country has, the lower the birth rate. In Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest countries, less than one-third of the country can competently read and write .Here, the average number of kids a mum has is between five and six. In Australia, where the literacy rate is 99 per cent, the average couple has 1.77 children. Women who are opportuned to have some formal education are more likely than uneducated women to use contraception, marry later, and have fewer children.
4. Early marriage and gender roles
In many developing countries, a woman’s role is expected to be as a wife and mother. This may often mean she gets married youngerand begins having children earlier enough. In developing countries, one in every three girls is married before age 18 . Married girls are often under pressure to become pregnant as soon as possible. This typically means an end to a girl’s education, which can limit her life choice expectations and help perpetuate the cycle of poverty.
5. Care for elders
In some developing countries, like Nigeria where the
government doesn’t provide a pension or social security benefit, so parents must rely
on their children to care for them in their old age. Couples may choose to have more
kids to ensure they are properly taken care of when they’re older. For example, in India, children and grandchildren are legally required to provide food, accommodation, and health care for their parents at their old age when they are unable to provide for themselves.
6. Need for extra labour
More than 70 per cent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, with most families
depending on labour-intensive agriculture to survive. In these communities, there can be
a cultural expectation to have big families to combat their need for extra labour. Usually, farmers who live off their harvest can’t afford to pay extra labourers and can only depend on themselves and their children. For them, a large family might be the only assurance for survival.

THE REASONS WHY THE POOR HAVE MORE CHILDREN THAN THE RICH
Every child is a gift and a joy. But when income is scarce and a family is already struggling, why do parents expand their families? There are many social, cultural, religious and economic reasons why parents in the developing world have large families.
1. High child mortality rates
Because child mortality rates in the developing world are so high, parents may intentionally have large families because the grim reality is that sometimes children don’t survive. In Burkina Faso, a shocking 8.5 per cent of children will die before reaching their fifth birthday; in Haiti, it’s 6.7 per cent. For comparison, in Australia, the same figure is 0.4 per cent.
2. Limited access to education
Generally, the higher the degree of education and GDP per capita a country has, the lower the birth rate. In Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest countries, less than one-third of the country can competently read and write. Here, the average number of kids a woman has is between five and six. In Australia, where the literacy rate is 99 per cent, the average couple has 1.77 children. Women with some formal education are more likely than uneducated women to use contraception, marry later, and have fewer children.
3. Early marriage and gender roles
In some countries, a woman’s role is expected to be as a wife and mother. This may often mean she gets married at an early age and starts having children sooner. In developing countries, one in every three girls is married before age 18. Married girls are often under pressure to become pregnant as soon as possible. This typically means an end to a girl’s education, which can limit her life choices and help perpetuate the cycle of poverty.
4. Limited access to contraception
An estimated 225 million women in developing countries would like to delay or stop childbearing, but are not using any method of contraception. Most of these women live in the poorest countries on earth. In Africa, one in four women of reproductive age have an unmet need for modern contraception. This is due to many reasons, including limited information, options of contraceptive methods and access to contraception, or cultural or religious opposition and poor quality of available services. Supply chains often don’t extend to remote or rural areas, where families in extreme poverty tend to live.

5. Care for elders
In some developing countries, the government doesn’t provide a pension or social security benefit, so parents must rely on their children to care for them in their old age. Couples may choose to have large families to ensure they are supported when they’re older. For example, in India, children and grandchildren are legally required to provide food, accommodation, and health care for their parents if they are unable to provide for themselves.

6. Need for extra labour
More than 70 per cent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, with most families depending on labour-intensive agriculture to survive. In these communities, there can be a cultural expectation to have big families to combat their need for extra labour. Usually, farmers who live off their harvest can’t afford to pay extra labourers and can only depend on themselves and their children. For them, a large family might be the only assurance for survival.
7. Religion
Religious beliefs may mean a family chooses not to use contraceptives. In Latin America, social norms and religious tradition mean family planning services aren’t available to many communities. Affordable options for accessing contraception and health care for remote or rural communities are in short supply.
CONCLUSION
It is obvious that majority of developing countries including Nigeria, one easily conclude that for all the reasons an impoverished family may end up with many children, there are definite challenges that follow. With their resources spread thin, large families are less likely to afford education for their children, meaning those kids will likely grow up to have lower earning potential and be more likely to repeat the cycle of poverty.

Name: OBODIKE LOVETH OGADIMMA
Reg no: 2017/ 249537
Department: ECONOMICS
WHY POOR PEOPLE TEND TO HAVE MORE CHILDREN THAN THE RICH

child birth is like a sport most people engage in and the poor in the society seem to enjoy it more than others. It is the only thing they can do – to have sex and procreate. It should come as no surprise that Nigerian population will be the third largest in a few years, falling behind only China and India. These are some of the reasons poor people give birth to so many children in my country:
Wealth: For the poor, children are their wealth. That is why parents give their children names like; Tubokeyi— child is everything, Tubolayefa— there is nothing like a child, Tubodeinyefa— nothing can be compared to a child, Tubokeyi— child is the only important thing, etc. Rarely will you hear such names in a wealthy household. On average, lower to middle class Nigerians give birth to 5 children. The rich give birth to 2 on average. The following are the reasons why the poor has more kids than the rich;
(1) Death: Some countries of the world have very high child mortality rate and my country is at the top of the ladder. For this reason, parents give birth to so many children with the hope that some would be lucky enough to survive to adulthood. It’s a pity that even in the 21st century, many women living in under-developed countries still rely on luck for safe delivery and prevention of child death due to poor health care.
(2) Poverty: Poor people have no opportunity for sex education and family planning. The government of my country has not taken family planning seriously as a means to cut down over-population like China did, which is something we need right now, despite having different government system. Contraceptives are like taboo in some families and communities. Couples will openly tell you Condom no sweet’ and family planning is nonsense na God dey give pikin, children na blessing from God. Hence over-population.

(3) Quantity over quality: It is not strange here in Nigeria to see or hear that half of a community belong to the same family, not only that, they all answer the same surname. This family don’t necessarily have plans for the children they give birth to, with the exception of a microscopic few. These families usually don’t care much about the education and well-being of the children but about increasing the family size tremendously for farm work or to withstand external conflicts.
(4) Ignorance: Our grandmother, that old disease ignorance is probably the cause of it all. Many people are not just poor financially, they are also poor in knowledge. Considering children as wealth is ignorance- children not well cared for usually end up destitute and make life difficult for everyone all over the world. Child mortality will greatly reduce if only couples could make necessary arrangements for quality health care before conceiving in order to reduce risk, luck is just not enough and complains solve no problem, only action does. In the 21st century, any family that thinks they can avert conflict or protect themselves due to their large numbers is mistaken, if it were, the United States’ wouldn’t be world power, not when we have countries like China and India. In this world of technology and sophisticated weapons, size does not count much.
(5) High child mortality rates. Imagine living in a place where your childrens lives are constantly threatened. Theres not enough nutritious food, limited access to clean water, inadequate housing, poor health care and minimal government support. All of these factors contribute to child mortality and parents in poverty know this keenly. According to the World Health Organization, 5.4 million children under five are dying every year, with most of these children in developing countries. Faced with this reality, parents may have more kids, understanding the heart-breaking truth that some of their children simply wont survive.
(6) Misconceptions about family planning. In many communities, stigmas against contraception still exist. These beliefs can originate from a variety of sources, including breakdowns in public health education, cultural biases and even scepticism about the motives of the government in controlling family size. Often, they contribute to the cultivation of fear and confusion over using certain family planning methods.
(7) Lack of access to health services. Its not always misconceptions that prevent people from practicing family planningsometimes its the lack of accessible health care.For some, health clinics are located far from their homes and villages, making it difficult to travel to get needed support. In especially rural areas, a lack of infrastructure, roads and transportation can also be a barrier toward receiving professional medical care.
(8) Patriarchal values. To Canadians, having fewer childrenor no childrenis an increasingly familiar norm and the conversation around womens reproductive rights is one thats top of mind. But in many countries, the severity and pervasiveness of patriarchal values is still an overwhelming reality. In these circumstances, men can often make the decisions for their wives and families, including whether or not to use contraception. As a result, women are often left without any control over how many kids theyll end up having.
(9) Forced early marriage. Forced early marriage is any marriage where either person is under 18 and hasnt given their full consent to be married. It happens for many reasons and teenage girls are by far the most vulnerable. When a girl is married young, her childbearing years start much earlier, meaningamong other complicationsshes likely to have more kids.
( 10) Lack of education. Girls who marry and begin their families in adolescence are much less likely to finish school and go on to model educational values for their children. They are also likely to have more kids, making it difficult to afford the cost of education for each child. [6] On the other hand, women who go further in their education tend to have fewer children. They often marry later in life and are more likely to prioritize their own childrens education, understanding the financial investment it will require.

(11) Religious beliefs. In many faiths, children are seen as an enormous blessing. Religious texts and scripture can enforce this idea and often act as a strong guiding influence in peoples lives. When a life philosophy is engrained in the belief that your offspring will be provided for and that children are incredible gifts, it stands to reason that couples would embrace the idea of a large family.

(12) Social reputation. In a culture or community where children are viewed as blessings, the larger the familythe more blessed you are. In many parts of the Global South, couples without children are stigmatized and looked down upon. Big families are viewed as powerful and if a woman is unable to bear children, its not uncommon for her husband to abandon her or begin a family with someone else.

Family legacy. For many, the desire to preserve lineage, history and a family name can feel like a natural, human instinct. Its not uncommon for parents to be partial to passing on their own genetics to continue their family legacy.

Limited finances. Families in poverty, particularly those who make their living through agriculture, may have more kids as a way of supporting the familys livelihood. Children are often tasked with chores like walking to collect water, gardening, field work and animal care, even when theyre very young. In more dire situations, children may enter the labour forceoften illegallyto earn more income for the familys survival.

Care for elders. As children grow up, they not only carry on their familys legacy, but also the responsibility of providing for and protecting their parents and siblings. This is especially important in countries without strong governmental safety nets. In these cases, having more kids may provide an extra sense of security for parents, with the added hope that one day, one or more children may be successful enough to lift the entire family out of poverty.

Being poor as a child, even for only a short time, can have consequences reaching far into adulthood. The instability that accompanies poverty puts stress on parents, spilling over to children. This can manifest itself in long-lasting ways. In the face of these obstacles, what circumstances help poor children succeed (or at least dont hold them back) and what stacks the deck against them?
NEGATIVE IMPACT ON THE POOR HAVING MORE CHILDREN THAN THE RICH
POVERTY HARMS THE BRAIN AND OTHER BODY SYSTEM
How developmental science understand child poverty has changed a great deal in recent years. Poverty for children, is not simply a matter of getting by with less of the essentials of life .particularly at its extremes, poverty can negatively affect how the body and mind develop, and can actually alter the fundamental architecture of the brain. Children who experience poverty has an increased likelihood, extending into adulthood, for numerous chronic illnesses and for a shortened life expectancy.
POVERTY CREATES AND WIDENS ACHIEVEMENT GAPS
Children growing up in poverty, when compared with their economically more secured peers, fall behind early. Starting in infancy, gaps are evident in key aspect of learning, knowledge and social-emotional development. When left unaddressed, these early gaps become progressively wider. Early optional development tends to open doors to further optimal development, while impoverished development tends to close those doors. So, poor children lag behind their peers at entry to kindergarten, in reading ability at the end of third grade, in the important self-monitoring skills often called executive functioning and in school attendance in eighth grade. Poor children are more likely to drop out of school or fail to obtain post-secondary education.
POVERTY LEADS TO POOR PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL AND BEHAVIORAL HEALTH
Even when poverty does not directly alter human biological systems, we know that growing up poor increases the likelihood that children will have poor health including poor emotional and behavioural health, poverty works in multiple to constrict childrens opportunities and expose them to threats to well-being. Poor children are more likely to lack food security as well as have diet that are deficient in important nutrients. Rates of several chronic health conditions such as asthma are higher among poor children .they are less likely to receive preventive medical and dental care.
POOR CHILDREN ARE MORE LIKELY TO LIVE IN NEIGHBORHOODS WITH CONCENTRATED POVERTY, WHICH IS ASSOCIATED WITH NUMEROUS SOCIAL ILLS
While direct causal links between neighbourhoods, poverty and childrens outcomes are challenging to identify in research, scholars have found that growing up in neighbourhoods with concentrated poverty is associated with negative academic outcomes, more social and behavioural problems and poorer health and physical fitness outcomes. Poor children are more likely to live in neighbourhoods, where they are expose to environmental toxins and other physical hazards, including crime and violence. In the case of violence even in direct exposure witnessing or simply hearing of its occurrence has been linked with adverse developmental outcomes. Poor children are also disproportionately likely to attend schools in districts with fewer resources, with facilities that are grossly inadequate, and with school leadership that is more transient
POVERTY CAN HARM CHILDREN THROUGH THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS IT HAS ON THEIR FAMILIES AND THE HOME ENVIRONMENT
While the strength of poor families are often overlooked, parent experience numerous challenges that can affect their own emotional well-being, as well as their childrens. poor parents report higher stress, aggravation, and depressive symptoms than do higher-income parents. parent with scarce economic resources faces difficulty planning, preparing and providing for their families, material needs. Children in poor families have fewer books and other educational resources at home, and they are less likely to experience family outings, activities and programs that can enrich learning opportunities. Their families are more likely to experience housing instability. Direct evidence that additional income can improve childrens lives comes from several experimental evaluations: programs that increased family income showed improvement in childrens social and academic outcomes.

POSITIVE IMPACT ON THE POOR HAVING MORE CHILDREN THAN THE RICH

THE NEED FOR EXTRA LABOR
More than 70 per cent of the worlds poor live in rural areas, with most families depending on labour-intensive agriculture to survive. In these communities, there can be a cultural expectation to have big families to combat their need for extra labour. Usually, farmers who live off their harvest cant afford to pay extra labourers and can only depend on themselves and their children. For them, a large family might be the only assurance for survival.
2.THE CARE FOR ELDERS
In some developing countries, the government doesnt provide a pension or social security benefit, so parents must rely on their children to care for them in their old age. Couples may choose to have large families to ensure they are supported when theyre older. For example, in India, children and grandchildren are legally required to provide food, accommodation, and health care for their parents if they are unable to provide for themselves

Oji Samuel Nkemakolam
2017/249548
Economics department
Sammybou.sno@gmail.com
Reasons why the people bare more children that the rich
(1)lack of family planning : poor people do not have the necessary funds for family planning at the hospital, so they tend to gives birth to so many children .
(2) illteracy : poor people who have no formal education do not understand the needs to have fewer children they can take care of . They do not know the consequences of having plenty children .
3. Myth surrounding give birth to many children : most poor people believes the more children they have the more chances they have in leaving poverty . They believe one or two of the numerous children they have will take them out of poverty .
Consequences
1. Overcrowding in the family house.
2. limited resources to ensure family wellbeing.
3. It leads to increase in population which creates more labour.

NAME: EZIKE MARYCYNTHIA CHIAMAKA
REG NO: 2017/242944
EMAIL: marycynthiachiamaka95@gmail.com
DEPT: ECONOMICS.

CAUSES OF HIGH FERTILITY RATE.
Chief among the drivers of early childbearing is early marriage or living with a man as though married. Although Nigeria’s laws see persons under the age of 18 years as children who are below the age of consent and marriage, child marriage remains a common practice in many parts and more than 40% of Nigerian girls are victims of child marriage.
In some contexts, the marriage of children who may be as young as 13 to older men as second, third or fourth wives is forced and supported with religious injunctions. In other situations, though less common than child marriage with the consent of parents, children may be abducted and kept as sex slaves by terrorists or other dissidents with little regard for state laws.
In scenarios like these, the girls are exposed to sex without access to contraceptives or information on how to prevent pregnancies. Generally, Nigerian girls’ independent access to contraceptives is limited to those above the age of 18 years.
The region where girls live within the country is also a predictor of the timing of their first birth. Of the six geopolitical zones, girls in the North West, North East and South South regions are the most vulnerable to early childbearing, which is least likely in the South East. The zones overlap somewhat with clusters of similar cultures in Nigeria, although cultural pluralism is high in the South South and North Central regions.
In the North East and North West, the socio-cultural context is typically marked by a high level of conservatism, which community level gatekeepers of social norms and values uphold with Islamic teachings.

CONSEQUENCES (positive)
Smaller birth cohorts should reduce the pressure on schools, allowing improvements in education. Across developing countries, expenditures per pupil rise as the proportion of the population that is of school age declines. But education spending in total does not necessarily increase, and enrollment rates do not always rise (Schultz, 1987). The “demographic bonus” from declining fertility, which could be spent to increase enrollment or improve the quality of education, is sometimes spent instead on ineffective educational systems or on other things besides education.
Lower fertility presumably is a boon not only for the educational system as a whole but also for individual parents in educating their children. With fewer children, parents should have more resources, time, and energy to spend on each child. Empirical studies generally confirm that fewer children means each gets more education, although the effect is neither universal nor necessarily sizable.
Lower fertility also produces healthier children. Closely spaced children, large numbers of children in each family, and children born to younger mothers are all more common before fertility declines, and such children all face higher mortality risks. Even up to the age of five years, the risk of death is greater if the interval since the preceding birth is shorter. The risk of death in the first month of life (the neonatal period) is 35-60 percent higher after a birth interval under 2 years than after an interval of 2-4 years (as Figure 8 shows for three regions).
Lower fertility therefore provides societies with opportunities, especially in the form of increased savings that could spur investment and economic growth, a “demographic bonus” that could be spent to improve education, and fewer high-risk births that could lead to healthier childhoods, if other health risks can be contained. Additional opportunities include reduced pressure on public expenditures and the grace period that lower fertility and slower population growth provide for dealing with pressures on the environment and for managing such typically limited resources as a society’s water supplies.

NEGATIVE EFFECT.

In countries such as Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda, women still have from 5 to 6 children, on average, while in conflict-torn countries such as Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan, they are still having an average of 4 children during their lifetimes.
Regions with very large youth cohorts are historically far more prone to violence than older populations, and high fertility rates are a formula for maintaining very young populations. Only when fertility falls and investments in each child start to rise do societies appear to get on track for political stability and sustained growth in per capita incomes.
Much of sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East remains far from being on that track today. Moreover, an ever-greater proportion of the world’s children are growing up in these regions. Roughly 25 percent of the world’s children are in Africa today; by mid-century it will be 40 percent. Unless population growth in these regions slows to allow education and investment to catch up with surging youth cohorts, the prospects for long-term stability and prosperity in Africa and the Middle East will remain dim.
High fertility poses health risks for children and their mothers, detracts from human capital investment, slows economic growth, and exacerbates environmental threats.

NAME: ODOH KOSISOCHI DORIS
REG NO: 2017/249542
E- Mail : kosisochidoris@gmail.com
DEPT. : ECONOMICS
DATE : APRIL, 2021.

REASONS WHY THE POOR HAVE MORE CHILDREN THAN THE RICH AND THE ATTENDANT CONSEQUENCES (POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE) OF SUCH ACTIONS BASED ON MY OPINIONS.
The poor tend to have more children than the rich due to the following reasons:
1. Lack of education: Women with little or no education are more likely to have more kids, because most times these women are often jobless, having little or nothing to do for themselves making them full-time house wives .
2. Agricultural purposes: Most families in poverty see children as poverty alleviation schemes, wereby the larger number of children the larger barns of yams you will have. For instance, a poor man with four kids is likely to cultivate a plot of land for a week, while another poor man with 10 children might take three to four days to cultivate a plot of Land.
3. Limited finances: Most poor families tend to have more kids as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood through hawking of commodities on the highway, engaging in domestic chores in the neighborhood for little pay and most times the ladies are been married off as a way of generating income.
Consequences
Positive consequences
A. High child mortality rates: most developing countries especially in Nigeria where there is limited access to clean water, health care services and governmental support. Faced with this reality, parent may have more kids, understanding the heartbreaking truth that some of their children simply won’t survive.
B. CARE FOR ELDERS: In most developing countries there are less governmental safety nets for the citizens not to talk of the aged. In these case having more kids to shoulder responsibilities of providing for the family provides an extra sense of security for parents.
NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES
A. FAMILY PROBLEMS: Many poor families with greater number of children experience family problem, because running a household, paying bills can induce stress on the father who in turn transfers aggression on the wife and this often lead to domestic violence. These problems in the family are likely to have adverse effects on the children mentally and psychologically.
B. Poor Education: Most of these Children from poor homes go to rundown schools with inadequate facilities where they receive inadequate schooling and they end up not been able to compete with their counterparts wealthier families, leaving them with not well paid jobs that can not be able to gain them financial security, and in turn fuels a vicious cycle of continuing poverty.
C. CRIME AND VICTIMIZATION: Children living in poor neighborhood mostly where crimes are perpetuated are likely to grow up under such influence. For instance, in Ajegunle a suburb of Lagos state in Nigeria houses a lot of people living the poverty line, so these people in name of hussle engage in all manners of crimes like burglary, robbery and homicide just to generate little income. And most times kids and teens that grow up in these area turn out to become rogues and hoodlums.

Eric-nnaji Chiamaka Ngozi
2017/249499
Economics department
chiamaka.nnaji.249499@unn.edu.ng
Reasons why poor people have more children than the rich
Below are 3 reasons, based on my opinion, why poor people have a lot of children:
1. Some poor religious people have this sentiment that the more children you have, the more blessed you are.
2. Poor family planning: Most poor homes lack family planning; this could be as a result of illiteracy, ignorance and lack of current knowledge in that a lot of poor people are not up-to-date on the various developments that could used be used to control birth.
3. Comfort for the future: A lot of poor people would like to be assured that they’d have a lot of people (children) that they can depend on in their old age. Majority of the poor people that I think like this are the ones without savings.

Consequences
1. More children would mean a larger population which would increase the labour force of a country.
2. Most atimes, poor people do not have enough resources to fend for their numerous children, for instance they may not be able to afford education for the children and this can lead to them becoming vagabonds in the society.

THE REASONS WHY THE POOR HAVE MORE CHILDREN THAN THE RICH
In my country, child birth is like a sport most people engage in and the poor, I mean the very poor in the society seem to enjoy it more than others. It is the only thing they can do – to have sex and procreate. It should come as no surprise that Nigerian population will be the third largest in a few years, falling behind only China and India.
These are some of the reasons poor people give birth to so many children in my country:

Poverty in the Country: Poor people have no opportunity for sex education and family planning. The government of my country has not taken family planning seriously as a means to cut down over-population like China did, which is something we need right now, despite having different government system. Contraceptives are like taboo in some families and communities.

Ignorance: Our grand mother, that old disease “ignorance” is probably the cause of it all. Many people are not just poor financially, they are also poor in knowledge. Considering children as wealth is ignorance. Children not well cared for usually end up destitutes and make life difficult for everyone all over the world. Child mortality will greatly reduce if only couples could make necessary arrangements for quality health care before conceiving in order to reduce risk, luck is just not enough and complains solve no problem, only action does.

Lack of education: Girls who marry and begin their families in adolescence are much less likely to finish school and go on to model educational values for their children. They are also likely to have more kids, making it difficult to afford the cost of education for each child. On the other hand, women who go further in their education tend to have fewer children. They often marry later in life and are more likely to prioritize their own children’s education, understanding the financial investment it will require.

Religious beliefs: In many faiths, children are seen as an enormous blessing. Religious texts and scripture can enforce this idea and often act as a strong guiding influence in people’s lives. When a life philosophy is engrained in the belief that your offspring will be provided for and that children are incredible gifts, it stands to reason that couples would embrace the idea of a large family.

Death: Some countries of the world have very high child mortality rate and my country is at the top of the ladder. For this reason parents give birth to so many children with the hope that some would be lucky enough to survive to adulthood. It’s a pity that even in the 21st century, many women living in under-developed countries still rely on luck for safe delivery and prevention of child death due to poor health care.

High child mortality rates: Because child mortality rates in the developing world are so high, parents may intentionally have large families because the grim reality is that sometimes children don’t survive.

Misconceptions about family planning: In many communities, stigmas against contraception still exist. These beliefs can originate from a variety of sources, including breakdowns in public health education, cultural biases and even scepticism about the motives of the government in controlling family size. Often, they contribute to the cultivation of fear and confusion over using certain family planning methods.

Family legacy: For many, the desire to preserve lineage, history and a family name can feel like a natural, human instinct. It’s not uncommon for parents to be partial to passing on their own genetics to continue their family legacy.

Lack of access to health services: It’s not always misconceptions that prevent people from practicing family planning, sometimes it’s the lack of accessible health care. For some, health clinics are located far from their homes and villages, making it difficult to travel to get needed support. In especially rural areas, a lack of infrastructure, roads and transportation can also be a barrier toward receiving professional medical care.

POSITIVE ACTIONS OF THE POOR HAVING MORE CHILDREN THAN THE RICH
Care for elders
: In some developing countries, the government doesn’t provide a pension or social security benefit, so parents must rely on their children to care for them in their old age. Couples may choose to have large families to ensure they are supported when they’re older.

Need for extra labour
: More than 70 per cent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, with most families depending on labour-intensive agriculture to survive. In these communities, there can be a cultural expectation to have big families to combat their need for extra labour. Usually, farmers who live off their harvest can’t afford to pay extra labourers and can only depend on themselves and their children. For them, a large family might be the only assurance for survival.
Wealth: For the poor, children are their wealth

NEGATIVE ACTIONS OF THE POOR HAVING
MORE CHILDREN THAN THE RICH
Poor people are more likely to have several kinds of family problems, including divorce and family conflict.
Poor people are more likely to have several kinds of health problems.
Children growing up in poverty are less likely to graduate high school or go to college, and they are more likely to commit street crime.

Ezeamaku Chukwuemeka Victor
2017/243370
Economics department

Poverty amongst people have several characteristics and they include:
– High infant mortality rate amongst the children of the poor leading parents to try to give birth to more children to reduce their risk of childlessness. The, children serve as a form of insurance for their parents when they get old

-Lack of education on the importance of family planning.

-Child marriages

– Symbol of wealth or status, some people believe that several children is a sign of wealth

POSITIVE EFFECTS OF HAVING LARGE NUMBERS OF CHILDREN

– Families with large numbers of children have higher chances for social mobility.

– Source of free care for parents when they get old

– Parents use their large number of children as safety nets, and providers when they no longer can work.

NEGATIVE EFFECTS
— Low standard of living
— Breeds poverty
— Child Neglect
— Poor education
– Population explosion

NAME: EWA PRINCESS
REG NO: 2017/249501
DEPARTMENT: ECONOMICS
WEBSITE: blogwithprincess.wordpress.com
EMAIL: ewaprincess79@gmail.com
Some reasons why poor families have more children than rich families includes, but are not limited to the following;
1. Early marriages
2. Poor family planning
3. Need for extra labour
4. High child mortality
5. High illiteracy among poor families

EARLY MARRIAGES:
In most poor families of developing countries, a girl child is expected to be a libration to her family from poverty. As a result, she is given out to be married at an early age, sometimes earlier than the age of 18 and begin having children sooner. Most married girls are under pressure to become pregnant and start having children, as soon as possible. This early marriage, thus leads to having many children before she reaches old age, or menopause.
POOR FAMILY PLANNING:
In most developing countries, women in poor families have no or limited access to contraception. In Africa, one in four women of reproductive age have an unmet need for contraception. This is due to many reasons including, limited information, options of contraceptive methods, access to contraception, or cultural or religious opposition, and poor quality of available services. This makes it quite difficult for such women in poor families to delay or stop childbearing, unlike women of rich families who have an unlimited access to this contraception because for them, it can be easily purchased.
NEED FOR EXTRA LABOUR:
Most poor families live in the rural areas, with the families depending on labour-intensive agriculture to survive. For this families, it is a cultural expectation for them to have a larger family size to combat their need for extra labour/work force.
HIGH CHILD MORTALITY:
In most poor families, they is a high rate of child mortality even before this children celebrate their fifth birthday. These children born into poor families have limited or no access to health care services. And so, child mortality are high, unlike children born into rich families, who have access to quality health facilities. As a result, poor families therefore, give birth to large families, in case of death of any of the children
HIGH ILLITERACY AMONG POOR FAMILIES:
In developing countries, women with little or no education are likely to have more children than their counterparts, who are educated. Improved education level leads to changed parental perceptions of the cost and benefits of having children. While most women and men in poor families have little or no education, they readily give birth to more children than richer people who are educated.

NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES:
1. High dependency ratio
2. Over population
3. Vicious cycle of poverty
4. Higher illiteracy level
5. Child labour

HIGH DEPENDENCY RATIO:
One major setback of a larger family size, is the problem of high dependency. More children of unproductive ages from 0 to 15 depending on the peasant income of their parents. This dependency burden bore by parents makes it difficult for parents to carter properly for the high number of children. This leads to malnutrition, forced child labour and underdevelopment.
OVER POPULATION:
With larger family sizes, the population as a whole tends to increase. This becomes a burden too, for the government as they have to carter for an increased population. The downsides include, congestion, high population compressing on social amenities and infrastructures, lower living standard and low per capita income.
VICIOUS CYCLE OF POVERTY:
With a greater number of children born into poor homes, the dependency of this children on the low income of their parents leads to low saving. When the parents have a low saving, it leads to low investment. Low investment leads to low productivity. Low productivity leads to low income. Therefore, a vicious cycle of poverty.
HIGHER ILLITERACY LEVEL:
When poor parents have large families, they may not be able to send their children to school. Thus, they is a likelihood that this children; (a) will not be sent to school at all, (b) sent to public schools with poor quality education and poorly trained teachers, (c) drop out from primary school. This invariably leads to high illiteracy among children.
CHILD LABOUR
Most children born in poor families are forced to hawk things at a young age to support the family. Because the high number of children born to these poor families are not properly cartered for, they exist the case of forced child labour. These children after school everyday trekk long distances hawking, and even indulge in social vices to support their families. Some even drop out from school to hawk wares. All these are not obtainable in rich families.
POSTIVE CONSEQUENCES:
1. Increased labour force
2. Increased productivity

INCREASED LABOUR FORCE:
A large family, in the long run, is important for increased labour force both at the family and national level. With a large family, more hands are available for work, instead of hiring outside workers.
INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY
Large families means increased labour force. Increased labour force leads to an increase in productivity at family and national levels.

Name: Okwuchie Amos.
Reg no. 2017/249562
Email: okwuchieamos@gmail.com

WHY THE POOR HAVE INCREASED BIRTH RATE.
Mr President,
All the honourable members of this house.
The reason why there is increasing birth among the poor are explained below.
1. ILLITERACY: There’s correlation between poverty and illiteracy. Hence those who are poor doesn’t know the implementation of increased number of children. This is why they keep producing and hatching children like chicken.

SEARCH FOR MALE CHILD: To many families in Africa, important of male child cannot be overstated. Therefore, on course of seeking for male child. People keep breeding children.

NO OR LACK OF PREVENTIVE MEASURE: The means of controlling pregnancy abound but most of y poor never apply or use them. This means that they keep getting pregnant at a slight intercourse.

NO SOURCE OF PLEASURE APART THE WIFE OR HUSBAND: In poor setting, you can hardly find that which gives pleasure to man. Since there is no alternative source of joy, men and women resort to sex as the pleasure option.

NOTION OF INCREASING FAMILY WORKFORCE. Since number of children is presumed to be proportional to increase labour supply to the family. Therefore, poor family keep giving birth not minding of the availability of resources to catter for them.

Mr president.
Honourable members of the house.
I rest here with the aforementioned points that we can curtail the increased birth rate among the poor through reorientation and house-to-house sensitization on the need to give birth to the number of children you can catter for.
Thank you!

Name: Kingsley Gift EBUBECHUKWU
Reg number; 2017/241438
Dept: Economics

Reasons why the poor have more children and the attendant consequences.

Caring for the elders and Family Responsibility: It is believed that as children grow up, they carry the family’s legacies and also the responsibility of caring for their elderly one and also their siblings. And this is mostly common in countries with weak government support for the older citizens. As a result, having more children serves as a sense of hope and security that one day, one or more will be successful enough to life the family out of its present state of poverty.

Social norms and reputation: In a culture or community where children are seen as blessings, the larger the family—the more blessed you are. Mostly common among poor village settings, couples without children are stigmatized and looked down upon. Families with large number of children are viewed as powerful and if a woman is unable to bear children, it’s not strange for her husband to abandon her or begin a family with someone else. This practice is common among village cultures mostly in Nigeria where majority of them are POOR!

Lack of education: Girls from poor families are much less likely to finish school and may not know the importance of educational values for children. They are likely to get married at adolescence age and have more kids, still making it difficult to afford the cost of education for each child. The reverse is the case where girls from rich homes who go further in their education tend to have fewer children. They go on to marry later in life, prioritizing their own children’s education.

Religious beliefs: According to many beliefs and doctrines, children are seen as blessings. Religious books, texts and scripture often acts as a strong guide influencing people’s way of life. When one is of the belief that their children will be provided for and that they (children) are incredible gifts, it stands as a reason why couples would embrace the idea of a large family.

Limited access to adequate health care services and facilities.
Women who are poor or are from poor families miss out, mostly in the access to adequate health care facilities that helps to prevent excessive child bearing. This facilities such as contraception are usually expensive and mostly accessable by the rich. The supply chains often times don’t extend to rural areas where high majority of the families who live there are poor. A lack of infrastructure, roads and transportation can also be a barrier in the supply chain toward receiving professional medical care in rural areas. This leads to high birth rate among the poor.

Their Consequences are as follows:
Positive Consequences.
1. Most poor parents, despite the number of children try to educated and ensure their children are responsible. This increases the possibility of liberating the family from poverty.

Negative consequences…
High birth rates amongst the poor leads to leads to a number of disadvantage.
1) overpopulation of an area.
2) high level of unemployment. When a country is still battling with it’s current rate of unemployment, the increase in child bearing by poor families only worsen the case.
3) Crime rate: when there is over population and high unemployment, resources available becomes inadequate for all. This leads to survival of the fittest struggle, thereby increasing crime rate aggressively such as kidnapping and killing, human and organ trafficking, increase in ritual practices. And this make the area unfriendly for humanity.
4) All these listed above al leads to one direction which is increase in the poverty level of such nation or geographical area as a whole.

Ezeorah chukwuebuka Emmanuel
2017/249508
Economics
emmanuellescot32@gmail.com

Child bearing is very important in the world but people can still choose the number of children that they want to bear, this are the reasons why the poor bear more children than the rich in the world
Firstly, since the poor cannot feed their daughters well, they prefer to give them out for marriage early and the earlier they got married the more child bearing years they have
Secondly, people often keep producing children until a boy is born and sometimes even they have one, they will like to go for another
Thirdly, many poor people don’t know much about birth control measures and even when aware, many don’t want to spend on them
Lastly, most poor people are not educated enough and are not able to take a wise decision looking at pros and cons of producing an extra child

Name: Ugwu Perpertua Odinaka
Reg no: 2017/244848
Dept: Education Economics
everlastinggift9507@gmail.com
ugwuodinakap.blogspot.com
ECO 362 Assignment

WHY DO THE POOR HAVE LARGE FAMILIES THAN THE RICH
As a child growing up in Canada, I wanted nothing more than a big family.
With my mom as one of 11 siblings and my dad as one of ten, observing the joyful chaos of extended family Christmases, Thanksgivings and birthdays was something I longed to experience every day. Nothing made me happier than being surrounded by my big, loving, riotous family.
As I grew older, however, my perspective began to shift. I learned how poverty had marked my parents’ childhoods in Guyana—especially my mother’s—and it confused me. ‘So, why do poor people have more kids?’ I’d wondered.
My mom had often gone hungry so that her siblings could eat, and during the worst of times there just wasn’t enough to go around. It was hard for me not to judge what seemed like carelessness on the part of my grandparents.
But for them, and many parents like them across the Global South, the factors that play into family size are far more complex than a teenager like me was willing to consider.
So—why do impoverished parents in developing countries have more kids?
CONNECTING WITH LARGE FAMILIES FOR ANSWERS
Working with World Vision has given me a new lens for family life around the globe. As I’ve seen, there are many reasons why a family affected by poverty may choose to have many children—and why poor countries have high birth rates—ranging from cultural values to issues of social justice. Let’s explore some of the major ones.
1.High child mortality rates. Imagine living in a place where your children’s lives are constantly threatened. There’s not enough nutritious food, limited access to clean water, inadequate housing, poor health care and minimal government support. All of these factors contribute to child mortality and parents in poverty know this keenly. According to the World Health Organization, 5.4 million children under five are dying every year, with most of these children in developing countries. Faced with this reality, parents may have more kids, understanding the heartbreaking truth that some of their children simply won’t survive.
2.Misconceptions about family planning. In many communities, stigmas against contraception still exist. These beliefs can originate from a variety of sources, including breakdowns in public health education, cultural biases and even scepticism about the motives of the government in controlling family size. Often, they contribute to the cultivation of fear and confusion over using certain family planning methods.
3.Lack of access to health services. It’s not always misconceptions that prevent people from practicing family planning—sometimes it’s the lack of accessible health care. For some, health clinics are located far from their homes and villages, making it difficult to travel to get needed support. In especially rural areas, a lack of infrastructure, roads and transportation can also be a barrier toward receiving professional medical care.
4.Patriarchal values. To Canadians, having fewer children—or no children—is an increasingly familiar norm and the conversation around women’s reproductive rights is one that’s top of mind. But in many countries, the severity and pervasiveness of patriarchal values is still an overwhelming reality. In these circumstances, men can often make the decisions for their wives and families, including whether or not to use contraception. As a result, women are often left without any control over how many kids they’ll end up having.
5.Forced early marriage. Forced early marriage is any marriage where either person is under 18 and hasn’t given their full consent to be married. It happens for many reasons and teenage girls are by far the most vulnerable. When a girl is married young, her childbearing years start much earlier, meaning—among other complications—she’s likely to have more kids.
6.Lack of education. Girls who marry and begin their families in adolescence are much less likely to finish school and go on to model educational values for their children. They are also likely to have more kids, making it difficult to afford the cost of education for each child. On the other hand, women who go further in their education tend to have fewer children. They often marry later in life and are more likely to prioritize their own children’s education, understanding the financial investment it will require.
7.Religious beliefs. In many faiths, children are seen as an enormous blessing. Religious texts and scripture can enforce this idea and often act as a strong guiding influence in people’s lives. When a life philosophy is engrained in the belief that your offspring will be provided for and that children are incredible gifts, it stands to reason that couples would embrace the idea of a large family.
8.Social reputation. In a culture or community where children are viewed as blessings, the larger the family—the more blessed you are. In many parts of the Global South, couples without children are stigmatized and looked down upon. Big families are viewed as powerful and if a woman is unable to bear children, it’s not uncommon for her husband to abandon her or begin a family with someone else. Family legacy. For many, the desire to preserve lineage, history and a family name can feel like a natural, human instinct. It’s not uncommon for parents to be partial to passing on their own genetics to continue their family legacy.
9.Limited finances. Families in poverty, particularly those who make their living through agriculture, may have more kids as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children are often tasked with chores like walking to collect water, gardening, field work and animal care, even when they’re very young. In more dire situations, children may enter the labour force—often illegally—to earn more income for the family’s survival.
10.Care for elders. As children grow up, they not only carry on their family’s legacy, but also the responsibility of providing for and protecting their parents and siblings. This is especially important in countries without strong governmental safety nets. In these cases, having more kids may provide an extra sense of security for parents, with the added hope that one day, one or more children may be successful enough to lift the entire family out of poverty.
World Vision’s response through family planning programs
It’s clear that, for all the reasons an impoverished family may end up with many children, there are definite challenges that follow. With their resources spread thin, large families are less likely to afford education for their children, meaning those kids will likely grow up to have lower earning potential and be more likely to repeat the cycle of poverty.
But usually, it’s women who bear the highest cost of having many children.
Pregnancy takes a substantial toll on a woman’s body—whether she lives in Canada or anywhere else—but the risks are more pronounced in developing countries, where access to quality health care isn’t a foregone conclusion.
When a woman lives in difficult conditions, without a varied diet or access to prenatal vitamins, back-to-back pregnancies leave her especially vulnerable. Her nutritional stores, especially iron and calcium, are likely to become depleted and she will be less equipped to breastfeed her baby, meaning the child’s long-term health may be compromised as well.
The health risks are even more extreme for teenage mothers, who are more likely to become malnourished during pregnancy—their bodies are still growing, even as they sustain the child growing within them. With pelvises not fully developed, girls face higher chances of complications in delivery.
Healthy timing and spacing of pregnancy
Educating women and teens about the importance of family planning and methods of contraception could prevent as many as one in three maternal deaths and improve the survival rate of children. For this reason and others, World Vision incorporates family planning into our programs in the communities where we work, where it’s appropriate, encouraging healthy timing and spacing of pregnancy.
Partnering with faith leaders
Family planning happens at the household level. Still, would-be parents are influenced by their community’s norms and values—which are often intrinsically linked to its religious beliefs. By equipping faith leaders with facts about the benefits of healthy timing and spacing of pregnancy, and contextualizing those principles within scriptures and social teaching, clergy are equipped to use their platforms to positively influence the health of their congregations.
Small group coaching
World Vision works with married couples in small discussion groups, where they learn about the benefits of birth spacing and the importance of gender equality in decision-making. It’s a great place to ask questions in a non-threatening atmosphere. At the end of the sessions, couples who decide they would like to implement family planning measures in their own homes are referred to health centres for more support and counselling.
Educating men
Men play a crucial role in birth spacing—particularly in traditional, patriarchal cultures. World Vision runs workshops where fathers are coached in gender equality, sharing childcare responsibilities and upholding the health of their partners and children as they make family planning decisions together.
Working with youth
World Vision empowers young people with information, helping them make life choices that will set them up well for the future.
Strengthening health care systems
World Vision works in communities to support health systems that are already in place. This includes training health workers to provide counselling in family planning and birth spacing, and ensuring facilities have the equipment and supplies they need to provide women and girls with proper care before, during and after pregnancy.
Source: My world Vision by Kimberly Rupnarain
CONSEQUENCES OF THE POOR HAVING MORE CHILDREN
NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES
1.Family Problems: The various kinds of family problems thus happen more commonly in poor families than in wealthier families. Compounding this situation, when these problems occur, poor families have fewer resources than wealthier families to deal with these problems.
Health, Illness, and Medical Care: The poor are also more likely to have many kinds of health problems, including infant mortality, earlier adulthood mortality, and mental illness, and they are also more likely to receive inadequate medical care. Poor children are more likely to have inadequate nutrition and, partly for this reason, to suffer health, behavioral, and cognitive problems.
2.Education: Poor children typically go to rundown schools with inadequate facilities where they receive inadequate schooling. They are much less likely than wealthier children to graduate from high school or to go to college. Their lack of education in turn restricts them and their own children to poverty, once again helping to ensure a vicious cycle of continuing poverty across generations. A
3.Housing and Homelessness: The poor are, not surprisingly, more likely to be homeless than the nonpoor but also more likely to live in dilapidated housing and unable to buy their own homes. Many poor families spend more than half their income on rent, and they tend to live in poor neighborhoods that lack job opportunities, good schools, and other features of modern life that wealthier people take for granted.
4.Crime and Victimization: Poor (and near poor) people account for the bulk of our street crime (homicide, robbery, burglary, etc.), and they also account for the bulk of victims of street crime. The deep frustration and stress of living in poverty and the fact that many poor people live in high-crime neighborhoods. In such neighborhoods, children are more likely to grow up under the influence of older peers who are already in gangs or otherwise committing crime and people of any age are more likely to become crime victims.
POSITIVE COSEQUENCES
1.Having children regardless of the number is always a joy to the family.
2.It provides more labour to the family.
3.Large family makes household chores easier.
4.In the olden days, large family brings award or chieftaincy titles to family.
5.Having more children gives elders hope of those that will take care of them in their old age.

Ugwu Amaechi Jude
2017/242434
amaechi.ugwu.242434@unn.edu.ng
Economics Department

REASON WHY POOR PEOPLE HAVE MORE CHILDREN
The poor countries are most times on the receiving end of aids from foreign rich nations or international organisations. The aids most times come in the form of food supplies, medical supplies, clothing, learning materials, shelter etc. Sometimes the aids also take the form of medical services at a lower cost or free of charge.. These medical services include vaccinations, inoculation, emergency surgery, family planning etc.
Family planning is targeted at reducing the number of children per parent. But against these efforts by these foreign organisations like the United Nations to provide family planning to the poor countries, these poor people still bear more children than their rich counterparts. This could be as the result of following reasons.
Firstly, the poor are primarily traditional in nature. The traditional society views multiple children as something that is desired. Therefore parents in this society will try to conform to this general view by birthing multiple children.
Secondly, for the fact that they are poor, it will be very hard for them to source for external labour. Hence they opt for birthing many kids. When the kids come of age, they will be absolved into the family business. This will save the family extra money that they would have been paid to external labour.
Thirdly, most poor people does not think long term. They don’t think about the impact of their decisions in the long term, they are only after their “daily bread” and as such they birth many children without a long term plan for them.
The last but not the least cause of multiple birth by poor people is illiteracy. Inasmuch that the concept of family planning is thought and the facilities to ensure it are provided ; most of these poor people fail to understand and use it due to the fact that they are intellectually handicapped.
CONSEQUENCES
Birthing multiple children comes with its own consequence, both positive and negative. The positive consequences will be analysed first. The positive aspect includes
• Looking after the parents at Old age.
• Increase in the supply of labour.
• Perpetuity of the family name.
• Immortality of the linage.

The negative aspects include
• Population explosion
• Increased unemployment
• Increased poverty rate
• Increased crime rate etc

NAME: TARGEMA JOSIAH TERZARMO
REG NO: 2017/249457
DEPARTMENT: ECONOMICS

In the developing countries the poor people bear more children than the rich due to the following factors:
1. Family legacy. For many, the desire to preserve lineage, history and a family name can feel like a natural, human instinct. It’s not uncommon for parents to be partial to passing on their own genetics to continue their family legacy.
2. Care for elders. As children grow up, they not only carry on their family’s legacy, but also the responsibility of providing for and protecting their parents and siblings. This is especially important in countries without strong governmental safety nets. In these cases, having more kids may provide an extra sense of security for parents, with the added hope that one day, one or more children may be successful enough to lift the entire family out of poverty.
3. Limited access to education
Generally, the higher the degree of education and GDP per capita a country has, the lower the birth rate. In Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest countries, less than one-third of the country can competently read and write. Here, the average number of kids a mum has is between five and six. In Australia, where the literacy rate is 99 per cent, the average couple has 1.77 children. Women with some formal education are more likely than uneducated women to use contraception, marry later, and have fewer children.
There are a few reasons why education is connected to a lower birth rate:

* Increasing girls’ participation in school over time also decreases fertility rates. An educated woman is likely to marry at a later age and have fewer children. A study in Guatemala found that for each additional year a young woman spent in school, the age at which she had her first child was delayed approximately six to 10 months.

* Educating girls also helps women control how many children they have. UNESCO estimates 60 per cent fewer teenage girls in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia would become pregnant if they all had a secondary education.
Other factors may also include:
*Limited access to contraception
*Early ma

NAME-UFOMADU OSCAR ONYEACHI
REG NO-2017/249579
DEPARTMENT- ECONOMICS
COURSE TITLE-DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS II
COURSE CODE-ECO 362
TOPIC-WHY THE POOR TEND TO HAVE MORE CHILDREN THAN THE RICH
1. Little education or stack illiteracy of the poor familles especially the women
Generally, the higher the degree of education and GDP per capita a country has, the lower the birth rate. In Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest countries, less than one-third of the country can competently read and write. Here, the average number of kids a mum has is between five and six. In Australia, where the literacy rate is 99 per cent, the average couple has 1.77 children. Women with some formal education are more likely than uneducated women to use contraception, marry later, and have fewer children.
There are a few reasons why education is connected to a lower birth rate:
Increasing girls’ participation in school over time also decreases fertility rates. An educated woman is likely to marry at a later age and have fewer children. A study in Guatemala found that for each additional year a young woman spent in school, the age at which she had her first child was delayed approximately six to 10 months.
Educating girls also helps women control how many children they have. UNESCO estimates 60 per cent fewer teenage girls in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia would become pregnant if they all had a secondary education.
2.Labour intensity nature of their work -The poor give birth to more children to help them work on their farms for agricultural purposes. this as a means of putting food on their table tends to move then to give birth to mire children than the rich ones who friend on capital intensive or machines to do mist of their works.
3.Mentality of poverty elimination-it is believed in the igbo land that more children is more fortune as to the prosperity of those children and also that poor man gives birth to rich children.This is one reason why they tend to give birth to more children even though the saying seems fallacious..
4.Early Marriage and Gender Roles-this is one major reason why poor people give birth more .in the sense that the earlier one starts doing something the more of it and the best with accumulated energyhe achieves and generally,most african nations in the world or less civilised countries per se believe that the main work of females is to give birth so are encouraged to start it at an early stage with the believe to end childbirth in good health and full strenght to train the kids finally,they end up giving birth to many unlike the rich or civilised countries.
5.Lack of/or inadequate appropriate birth control measures due to either negligence or unaffordabilty of the price-due to negligence or high price for contraceptives or otherbirth control measures,the poor tend to overlook birthcontrol and endup having more children maybe even than planned.
6.It is also believed that the number of children one gives birth to is the number of people or caretakers of him/her during old age or dependent stage in life as an elder who is incapable of self fending.
7.Some religions in some part of the world is against birth control as these tool or instruments necessary for it are not made available or scarce only for those who can afford them.
8.High Death Rate and need for Continuity-the poor due to either inability to afford standard hospitals or health care centers for proper and safe delivery or other reasons not too well known to me fear death of their children so tend to give birth more because of this popular talk in the igbo land.”íhè fòró òțú áģwûļa áģwú”…’whats remaining one is at risk of finishing by interpretation ‘.

Name: Nwankpa Lilian Ugomma
Reg no: 2017/244743
Dept: Social science Education
THE REASON WHY THE POOR HAVE LARGER FAMILIES THAN THE RICH
Every child is a gift and a joy. But when income is scarce and a family is already struggling, why do parents expand their families? There are many social, cultural, religious and economic reasons why parents in the developing world have large families. Some might surprise you!
1. Early marriage and gender roles:
In some countries, a woman’s role is expected to be as a wife and mother. This may often mean she gets married younger and begins having children sooner. In developing countries, one in every three girls is married before age 18. Married girls are often under pressure to become pregnant as soon as possible. This typically means an end to a girl’s education, which can limit her life choices and help perpetuate the cycle of poverty.
2. Limited access to contraception
An estimated 225 million women in developing countries would like to delay or stop childbearing, but are not using any method of contraception. Most of these women live in the poorest countries on earth. In Africa, one in four women of reproductive age have an unmet need for modern contraception. This is due to many reasons, including limited information, options of contraceptive methods and access to contraception, or cultural or religious opposition and poor quality of available services. Supply chains often don’t extend to remote or rural areas, where families in extreme poverty tend to live.
3. Religion;
Religious beliefs may mean a family chooses not to use contraceptives. In Latin America, social norms and religious tradition mean family planning services aren’t available to many communities. Affordable options for accessing contraception and health care for remote or rural communities are in short supply.
A couple’s family size is their own personal decision and our local staff would never seek to denigrate it. As part of our Mums and Babies critical intervention, local staff share family planning methods in a culturally appropriate way so parents can make informed decisions.
4: Limited access to education
Generally, the higher the degree of education and GDP per capita a country has, the lower the birth rate. In Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest countries, less than one-third of the country can competently read and write. Here, the average number of kids a mum has is between five and six. In Australia, where the literacy rate is 99 per cent, the average couple has 1.77 children. Women with some formal education are more likely than uneducated women to use contraception, marry later, and have fewer children. There are
a few reasons why education is connected to a lower birth rate:
Increasing girls’ participation in school over time also decreases fertility rates. An educated woman is likely to marry at a later age and have fewer children. A study in Guatemala found that for each additional year a young woman spent in school, the age at which she had her first child was delayed approximately six to 10 months.
Educating girls also helps women control how many children they have. UNESCO estimates 60 per cent fewer teenage girls in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia would become pregnant if they all had a secondary education.
5. Ignorance:
Our grand mother, that old disease “ignorance” is probably the cause of it all. Many people are not just poor financially, they are also poor in knowledge. Considering children as wealth is ignorance—- children not well cared for usually end up destitutes and make life difficult for everyone all over the world. Child mortality will greatly reduce if only couples could make necessary arrangements for quality health care before conceiving in order to reduce risk, luck is just not enough and complains solve no problem, only action does. In the 21st century, any family that thinks they can avert conflict or protect themselves due to their large numbers is mistaken, if it were, the ‘United States’ wouldn’t be world power, not when we have countries like China and India. In this world of technology and sophisticated weapons, size does not count much.
6. Quantity Over Quality:
It is not strange here in Nigeria to see or hear that half of a community belong to the same family, not only that, they all answer the same surname. This families don’t necessarily have plans for the children they give birth to, with the exception of a microscopic few. These families usually don’t care much about the education and well-being of the children but about increasing the family size tremendously for farm work or to withstand external conflicts.

In a culture or community where children are viewed as blessings, the larger the family, the more blessed you are. In many parts of the Global South, couples without children are stigmatized and looked down upon. Big families are viewed as powerful and if a woman is unable to bear children, it’s not uncommon for her husband to abandon her or begin a family with someone else. For many, the desire to preserve lineage, history and a family name can feel like a natural, human instinct. It’s not uncommon for parents to be partial to passing on their own genetics to continue their family legacy. Families in poverty, particularly those who make their living through agriculture, may have more children as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children are often tasked with chores like walking to collect water, gardening, field work and animal care, even when they’re very young. In more dire situations, children may enter the labour force often illegally to earn more income for the family’s survival. Because child mortality rates in the developing world are so high, parents may intentionally have large families because the grim reality is that sometimes children don’t survive. In Burkina Faso, a shocking 8.5 per cent of children will die before reaching their fifth birthday; in Haiti, it’s 6.7 per cent. For comparison, in Australia, the same figure is 0.4 per cent.
It’s no question that poverty and its effects harms communities and even entire countries, but did you know that socioeconomic status directly impacts children as well? Children living in poverty experience a wide variety of risk factors, ranging from health concerns to increased difficulties at school.Because children grow within the context of a family unit, it is important to recognize how poverty affects the household as a whole. Firstly, parents living below the poverty level often have difficulties meeting basic economic needs for their families, such as paying for rent, food, utilities, clothing, education, accommodations, health care, health insurance, transportation, and child care. Living in poverty often means having limited access to health care, food and housing security, greater risk of school drop-out for children, homeless, unemployment due to lack of education or child care and, unfortunately, not reaching one’s full potential.

ENEH KENECHUKWU FRANKLIN
2017/249496
ECONOMICS DEPT

LACK OF PROPER EDUCATTION
Lack of proper education is the main root cause of why poor families has higher birth rate than rich homes, a well learned person must have been exposed to the dangers of lack of family planning which can be attained by acquiring proper education most of this poor families sees giving birth as a money making investment hoping that one of them gets rich and subsequently alleviate the poverty status of the family, its more of a selfish gain of the parents clouded by the shadows of illiteracy, The consequence to this is creation of nuisance to the society as most of them are allowed to roam the street in search of food exposing them to different social vices which includes prostitution, robbery, kidnapping ,drug addiction amongst others .

EARLY MARRIAGE
Most Africans see marriage as a poverty alleviation scheme, where one quickly runs of to marry mist times induced by the parents so as to make swift money off them, Early marriage is a social problem as young girls with little or no life experience are exposed to child rearing at a young age without proper self-evaluation in terms of taking care or discharging her motherly duties. This is tantamount to making large number of children as the girl child believes that the only reason to get married would-be making children.

ILL SOCIAL REPUTATION
Most poor families have this false belief that the number of children one bears determines their social standing in the society leading to them making more children than they can take care of ju8st to satisfy their selfish ego, this leads to and increased children on the street that ends up being a bad influence to the entire society as they were not properly cared for.

IGWEH SIXTUS OZIOMA
2017/247588
ECO 362
DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS 2
ANSWER
REASONS WHY THE POOR HAVE MORE CHILDREN THAN THE RICH AND THE ATTENNDANT CONSEQUENCES BY IGWEH SIXTUS
According to African Traditional Beliefs, most rich or influential individuals do not have much children because it is believed that they used their children to offer sacrifices to various deities to maintain their influential status in the society, and the believe that is why most influential people have only one or two children. Also according to African Beliefs, most poor or impoverished children have children not just to help them with farm work and other menial labours but to provide the rich with slaves and servants. It is a good thing that we have left such Era of thought, now we look at some of the real reasons and not just thoughts and beliefs that occurs in the society which makes it possible for poor families to have more children than rich families

REASONS FOR LARGE FAMILY SIZE BY POOR FAMILIES
1) Lack of understanding of the use of family planning: across the world, particularly developing countries the term “family planning” is often misinterpreted a lot. Most citizens of developing countries have the notion that family planning is something that will involve paying a lot of money to obtain, some view it as an opposition to their cultural beliefs that bigger is better, some view it as one of the cultures that developed countries want to impose on the developing countries, etc.
2) Family Values: Most citizens born from large families in the country, feel that they are obligated to maintain that same family culture by also having a large family just like the one they were born into.
3) Forced Early Marriage: In Nigeria this type of culture is predominant among the citizens of the Northern part of the country, where young girls aged 13-17 are married off to older men. When a woman is married off early like that, she begins child-bearing process at a very young age and it is likely for her to give birth to many children before reaching the age of menopause. If we assume that a young girl in northern Nigeria starts giving birth at age 15 and the age of Menopause is 35, and the she gives birth to one child every two years, she will give birth to ten children before attaining the age of menopause.
4) Religious Beliefs: across developing countries the influence and power of religion on citizens of various countries is very strong. Citizens do not oppose anything that their religion teaches. In many religious doctrines, it is quoted that children are blessings and that one should not limit himself to having a particular number of children, because it would mean limiting the blessings that one is entitled to enjoy. Some strong adherents of their religions’ teaching will obey the doctrines to the LETTER and will continue having as much children as they can, not minding if the children can be properly catered for or not.
5) Limited Finances: poor families especially the ones that depend on agriculture may have more kids as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children often start at a young age to do some forms of labour such as gardening, gathering firewood, fetching water, etc, some even join the labour force illegally to help provide more income to the family.
6) Social Reputation: most people maintain large family size just to maintain their social standing in the society, most times this is a result from family members.

CONSEQUENCES (POSITVE AND NEGATIVE) OF LARGE FAMILY SIZE ON A NATION’S ECONOMY
1) Population Size: a large family size in any country accounts for more than the total labour force of that country especially with labour-intensive developing countries. Developing countries are very labour-intensive and so any developing country that does not have a large population size is seen as not developing. Large population size which arises from large family size across different families in the country is necessary for economic growth and development for developing countries, since most of their production processes are labour-intensive. Also large population size will mean that a country has enough military power to expand and defend its borders from external and internal attacks, hence the lives of the citizens are secured at all times.
2) Living Conditions: large family size is not needed in countries and economies that have relatively small land mass area, as it leads to overpopulation, basic amenities which are provided to be used by few persons are used by much number of people. Also large family size indicates high birth rate in an economy, which occurs predominantly in places where living conditions are bad, parents living in such places will have as many children as possible so as to not feel the death of one child since they have many more mouths to cater for.
3) Division of Labour: children born into large families are already used to house chores being shared to them by their parents and as such when they reach the age of employment and are employed in a particular department or section of a company their output is different than others since at a young age they have been exposed to division of labour, so when they are assigned to a particular sector they invest all their human resources there to make it the best out of the rest. For an economy this means that they will be having workers who are efficient and reliable in carrying out their different duties which in the long run will set the economy on the path of proper growth and development.
4) Wage Rate: it is pertinent to note that the family size in a country does not affect the wage rate of that economy. That is to say that wage rate is determined solely by the market forces of demand and supply, and that population size is not a determinant of wage rate. This is to pour water to the notion that higher population means higher wages.
To conclude, historically it has been known that poor families give birth to more children than rich families but that point of view is beginning to change as the society is always evolving.

NAME: OKOLI MARYANN AMAUCHE
REG NO: 2017/243272
DEPT: ECONOMICS EDUCATION
EMAIL: maryannokoli14@gmail.com

REASONS POOR PEOPLE GIVE BIRTH TO MANY CHILDREN.

Every child is a gift and a joy. But when income is scarce and a family is already struggling, why do parents expand their families? There are many social, cultural, religious and economic reasons why parents in the developing world have large families.
At Compassion, we believe that every child is a precious gift from God: ‘Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him,’ Psalm 127:3.Each child has a purpose, and whether a family chose to expand for social, cultural, religious or economic reasons, it is our responsibility as a society to care for our most vulnerable. Here we take a look at some of the factors that contribute to larger families.

1. HIGH CHILD MORTALITY RATES
Because child mortality rates in the developing world are so high, parents may intentionally have large families because the grim reality is that sometimes children don’t survive. In Burkina Faso, a shocking 8.5 per cent of children will die before reaching their fifth birthday; in Haiti, it’s 6.7 per cent. For comparison, in Australia, the same figure is 0.4 per cent.

2. LIMITED ACCESS TO EDUCATION
Generally, the higher the degree of education and GDP per capita a country has, the lower the birth rate. In Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest countries, less than one-third of the country can competently read and write. Here, the average number of kids a mum has is between five and six. In Australia, where the literacy rate is 99 per cent, the average couple has 1.77 children. Women with some formal education are more likely than uneducated women to use contraception, marry later, and have fewer children.
There are a few reasons why education is connected to a lower birth rate:
Increasing girls’ participation in school over time also decreases fertility rates. An educated woman is likely to marry at a later age and have fewer children. A study in Guatemala found that for each additional year a young woman spent in school, the age at which she had her first child was delayed approximately six to 10 months.
Educating girls also helps women control how many children they have. UNESCO estimates 60 per cent fewer teenage girls in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia would become pregnant if they all had a secondary education.

3. EARLY MARRIAGE AND GENDER ROLES
In some countries, a woman’s role is expected to be as a wife and mother. This may often mean she gets married younger and begins having children sooner.
In developing countries, one in every three girls is married before age 18. Married girls are often under pressure to become pregnant as soon as possible. This typically means an end to a girl’s education, which can limit her life choices and help perpetuate the cycle of poverty.

4. LIMITED ACCESS TO CONTRACEPTION
An estimated 225 million women in developing countries would like to delay or stop childbearing, but are not using any method of contraception. Most of these women live in the poorest countries on earth. In Africa, one in four women of reproductive age have an unmet need for modern contraception. This is due to many reasons, including limited information, options of contraceptive methods and access to contraception, or cultural or religious opposition and poor quality of available services. Supply chains often don’t extend to remote or rural areas, where families in extreme poverty tend to live.

5. CARE FOR ELDERS
In some developing countries, the government doesn’t provide a pension or social security benefit, so parents must rely on their children to care for them in their old age. Couples may choose to have large families to ensure they are supported when they’re older. For example, in India, children and grandchildren are legally required to provide food, accommodation, and health care for their parents if they are unable to provide for themselves.

6. NEED FOR EXTRA LABOUR
More than 70 per cent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, with most families depending on labour-intensive agriculture to survive. In these communities, there can be a cultural expectation to have big families to combat their need for extra labour. Usually, farmers who live off their harvest can’t afford to pay extra labourers and can only depend on themselves and their children. For them, a large family might be the only assurance for survival.

7. RELIGION
Religious beliefs may mean a family chooses not to use contraceptives. In Latin America, social norms and religious tradition mean family planning services aren’t available to many communities. Affordable options for accessing contraception and health care for remote or rural communities are in short supply.
A couple’s family size is their own personal decision and our local staff would never seek to denigrate it. As part of our Mums and Babies critical intervention, local staff share family planning methods in a culturally appropriate way so parents can make informed decisions.

Name: Enyum Joseph ikechukwu
Reg No: 2017/249498
Email address: Enyumjoseph@gmail.com
Dept: Economics.

The poor believes that procreation is essential to man because the more the children u have, the more your chances of living a better life in future. They see children as opportunity of having a better life. Because when you have 4 hard working children. That can change the life of the family forever Lack of education is also one of reason poor people have more children. They are not informed and also not exposed to the disadvantages of having too many children in their modern age.
Here are some of the reasons while poor people give birth to more children’s (1)Religious and Cultural Norms: Religion such as Islam permit a man to marry upto four(4) women. A poor man who is not occupied or have less work to do tends to marry such amount of women. Thus, such a polygamous family will have a high birthrate as all the women will want to have equal amount of children. This will lead to competition among them as each will want to have more children. Some cultures also encourage high fertility rate, as more children are being given birth to, so that their livestocks can properly be taken care of.
(2)Consequences of High birth rate (negative and positive) One of the negative consequence is quantity-quality trade offs: as poor people tend to have more children than the rich people, their behaviour is either irrational or a sign that they cannot control their fertility.
One positve effect of this is that there’s better division of labour as more children are available to share the large work available, in which a single child will be unable to do or will take more time for few individuals to do. But having more children to do the work will save time and opportunity cost of employing labour would be reduced or prevented. Higher tendency of mortality rate: For the fact that child death or mortality rate in developing world are so high, parents may intentionally have large families because the actual reality is that sometimes children don’t survive. For instance, in Burkina Faso, a shocking 8.5 percent of children usually die before reaching their 5th birthday.
As a result of this scenario, poor parents found in such situation, will want to have many children based the ideology that not all would die before their 5th birthday. More work-force needed and the income a child could bring home:
Some poor couples may intentionally give birth to more children in order to assist in farm related jobs. In cases were a familt have more large farms instead of employing labour, such family will resort to having more children which will help in working at the various farms. Thus reducing the opportunity cost of employing labour.
(3) Also poor families give birth to more children add a result of the income they might bring home by doing menial jobs or hawking food items. Although this income is relatively low, but collectively would solve little financial problems at home.

Name: Enyum Joseph ikechukwu
Reg no: 2017/249498
Email: Enyumjoseph@gmail.com

The poor believes that procreation is essential to man because the more the children u have, the more your chances of living a better life in future. They see children as opportunity of having a better life. Because when you have 4 hard working children. That can change the life of the family forever Lack of education is also one of reason poor people have more children. They are not informed and also not exposed to the disadvantages of having too many children in their modern age Religious and Cultural Norms: Religion such as Islam permit a man to marry upto four(4) women. A poor man who is not occupied or have less work to do tends to marry such amount of women. Thus, such a polygamous family will have a high birthrate as all the women will want to have equal amount of children. This will lead to competition among them as each will want to have more children. Some cultures also encourage high fertility rate, as more children are being given birth to, so that their livestocks can properly be taken care of. Consequences of High birth rate (negative and positive) One of the negative consequence is quantity-quality trade offs: as poor people tend to have more children than the rich people, their behaviour is either irrational or a sign that they cannot control their fertility. One positve effect of this is that there’s better division of labour as more children are available to share the large work available, in which a single child will be unable to do or will take more time for few individuals to do. But having more children to do the work will save time and opportunity cost of employing labour would be reduced or prevented. Higher tendency of mortality rate: For the fact that child death or mortality rate in developing world are so high, parents may intentionally have large families because the actual reality is that sometimes children don’t survive. For instance, in Burkina Faso, a shocking 8.5 percent of children usually die before reaching their 5th birthday. As a result of this scenario, poor parents found in such situation, will want to have many children based the ideology that not all would die before their 5th birthday. More work-force needed and the income a child could bring home: Some poor couples may intentionally give birth to more children in order to assist in farm related jobs. In cases were a familt have more large farms instead of employing labour, such family will resort to having more children which will help in working at the various farms. Thus reducing the opportunity cost of employing labour. Also poor families give birth to more children add a result of the income they might bring home by doing menial jobs or hawking food items. Although this income is relatively low, but collectively would solve little financial problems at home.

Enyum Joseph ikechukwu
2017/249498
The poor believes that procreation is essential to man because the more the children u have, the more your chances of living a better life in future. They see children as opportunity of having a better life. Because when you have 4 hard working children. That can change the life of the family forever
Lack of education is also one of reason poor people have more children. They are not informed and also not exposed to the disadvantages of having too many children in their modern age
Religious and Cultural Norms: Religion such as Islam permit a man to marry upto four(4) women. A poor man who is not occupied or have less work to do tends to marry such amount of women. Thus, such a polygamous family will have a high birthrate as all the women will want to have equal amount of children. This will lead to competition among them as each will want to have more children. Some cultures also encourage high fertility rate, as more children are being given birth to, so that their livestocks can properly be taken care of.
Consequences of High birth rate (negative and positive)
One of the negative consequence is quantity-quality trade offs: as poor people tend to have more children than the rich people, their behaviour is either irrational or a sign that they cannot control their fertility.

One positve effect of this is that there’s better division of labour as more children are available to share the large work available, in which a single child will be unable to do or will take more time for few individuals to do. But having more children to do the work will save time and opportunity cost of employing labour would be reduced or prevented.
Higher tendency of mortality rate: For the fact that child death or mortality rate in developing world are so high, parents may intentionally have large families because the actual reality is that sometimes children don’t survive. For instance, in Burkina Faso, a shocking 8.5 percent of children usually die before reaching their 5th birthday. As a result of this scenario, poor parents found in such situation, will want to have many children based the ideology that not all would die before their 5th birthday.
More work-force needed and the income a child could bring home: Some poor couples may intentionally give birth to more children in order to assist in farm related jobs. In cases were a familt have more large farms instead of employing labour, such family will resort to having more children which will help in working at the various farms. Thus reducing the opportunity cost of employing labour. Also poor families give birth to more children add a result of the income they might bring home by doing menial jobs or hawking food items. Although this income is relatively low, but collectively would solve little financial problems at home.

Name:Meteke Joy Orimusue
Reg.no:2017/242430
Department:Economics
Website: metekejoy01.blogspot.com
Email:joymetex2000@gmai.com

REASONS WHY POOR FAMILIES TEND TO HAVE MORE CHILDREN THAN RICH FAMILIES AND NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF LARGE NUMBER OF CHILDREN IN POOR FAMILIES .
1. High child mortality rates
Because child mortality rates in the developing world are so high, parents may intentionally have large families because the grim reality is that sometimes children don’t survive. In Burkina Faso, a shocking 8.5 per cent of children will die before reaching their fifth birthday; in Haiti, it’s 6.7 per cent. For comparison, in Australia, the same figure is 0.4 per cent.
2. Limited access to education
Generally, the higher the degree of education and GDP per capita a country has, the lower the birth rate. In Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest countries, less than one-third of the country can competently read and write. Here, the average number of kids a mum has is between five and six. In Australia, where the literacy rate is 99 per cent, the average couple has 1.77 children. Women with some formal education are more likely than uneducated women to use contraception, marry later, and have fewer children.
There are a few reasons why education is connected to a lower birth rate:
a.Increasing girls’ participation in school over time also decreases fertility rates. An educated woman is likely to marry at a later age and have fewer children. A study in Guatemala found that for each additional year a young woman spent in school, the age at which she had her first child was delayed approximately six to 10 months.

b.Educating girls also helps women control how many children they have. UNESCO estimates 60 per cent fewer teenage girls in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia would become pregnant if they all had a secondary education.
3.Early marriage and gender roles:
In some countries, a woman’s role is expected to be as a wife and mother. This may often mean she gets married younger and begins having children sooner.In developing countries, one in every three girls is married before age 18. Married girls are often under pressure to become pregnant as soon as possible. This typically means an end to a girl’s education, which can limit her life choices and help perpetuate the cycle of poverty.
4. Limited access to contraception
An estimated 225 million women in developing countries would like to delay or stop childbearing, but are not using any method of contraception. Most of these women live in the poorest countries on earth. In Africa, one in four women of reproductive age have an unmet need for modern contraception. This is due to many reasons, including limited information, options of contraceptive methods and access to contraception, or cultural or religious opposition and poor quality of available services. Supply chains often don’t extend to remote or rural areas, where families in extreme poverty tend to live.
5.Care for Elders
In some developing countries, the government doesn’t provide a pension or social security benefit, so parents must rely on their children to care for them in their old age. Couples may choose to have large families to ensure they are supported when they’re older. For example, in India, children and grandchildren are legally required to provide food, accommodation, and health care for their parents if they are unable to provide for themselves.
6. Need for extra labour
More than 70 per cent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, with most families depending on labour-intensive agriculture to survive. In these communities, there can be a cultural expectation to have big families to combat their need for extra labour. Usually, farmers who live off their harvest can’t afford to pay extra labourers and can only depend on themselves and their children. For them, a large family might be the only assurance for survival.
7. Religion
Religious beliefs may mean a family chooses not to use contraceptives. In Latin America, social norms and religious tradition mean family planning services aren’t available to many communities. Affordable options for accessing contraception and health care for remote or rural communities are in short supply.
CONSEQUENCES
1.Increased population with few resources to go round(over population)
2.Unemployment
3.Increased Crime Rate(because of the high rate of unemployment)
4.For women ,there are multiple health risk of having multiple pregnancies like post pertem bleeding.

Omeke Anslem Francisco
2017/249564
assurance081@gmail.com
Eco 362

According to the official U.S. measure of poverty, in 1995 the child poverty rate in this country was nearly 21%, compared with an adult poverty rate of 11%. This research explores why, according to the official measure, there are so many poor children. Working from the premise that children are poor because they live with poor adults, the reasons for adult poverty are reviewed. Both economic forces and demographic trends have contributed to growing inequality of earnings among workers. That inequality coupled with stagnating real earnings has increased poverty. Some of its reasons are (high birth rate among the poor);

1. Patriarchal values; having fewer children—or no children—is an increasingly familiar norm and the conversation around women’s reproductive rights is one that’s top of mind. But in many countries, the severity and pervasiveness of patriarchal values is still an overwhelming reality. In these circumstances, men can often make the decisions for their wives and families, including whether or not to use contraception. As a result, women are often left without any control over how many kids they’ll end up having.

2. High child mortality rates; Imagine living in a place where your children’s lives are constantly threatened. There’s not enough nutritious food, limited access to clean water, inadequate housing, poor health care and minimal government support. All of these factors contribute to child mortality and parents in poverty know this keenly. According to the World Health Organization, 5.4 million children under five are dying every year, with most of these children in developing countries. Faced with this reality, parents may have more kids, understanding the heartbreaking truth that some of their children simply won’t survive.

3. Religious beliefs; In many faiths, children are seen as an enormous blessing. Religious texts and scripture can enforce this idea and often act as a strong guiding influence in people’s lives. When a life philosophy is engrained in the belief that your offspring will be provided for and that children are incredible gifts, it stands to reason that couples would embrace the idea of a large family.

4. Misconceptions about family planning; In many communities, stigmas against contraception still exist. These beliefs can originate from a variety of sources, including breakdowns in public health education, cultural biases and even scepticism about the motives of the government in controlling family size. Often, they contribute to the cultivation of fear and confusion over using certain family planning methods.

5. Social reputation; In a culture or community where children are viewed as blessings, the larger the family—the more blessed you are. In many parts of the Global South, couples without children are stigmatized and looked down upon. Big families are viewed as powerful and if a woman is unable to bear children, it’s not uncommon for her husband to abandon her or begin a family with someone else.

The positive effect of the high number of children born by the poor if well managed and developed is increased human capital which would lead to increase in productivity of the economy.

The negative effect of the high number of children born by the poor leads to a growing lower standard of living, declining trend of agricultural development: per capita availability of land for cultivation declined from 1.1 acre in 1911 to 0.6 acre in 1971 in our country which makes the size of holdings very small, creates the Problem of Unemployment, leads to a vicious Circle in poverty and reduces the rate of capital formation.

Ogumba Joy Chidinma
2017/242028
Education Economics

ANSWER
REASONS WHY THE POOR HAVE MORE CHILDREN THAN THE RICH
Economists refer to goods that you purchase more of when your income increases as “normal” goods and those that you purchase less of as “inferior” goods. For example, steak dinners are likely to be a normal good while mac and cheese is likely to be an inferior good.

Before 1800, just about everybody was poor. You had royalty, you had these huge landowners, but they were a tiny, tiny minority and just about everyone lived in poverty. And everyone lived very much wedded to their land. This was the entire history of humanity. There were some huge changes, of course: agriculture. What happened was that mostly people were hunters and gatherers before agriculture. And then, when agriculture started, food production was then brought to people rather than vice versa. People didn’t go out looking for food. There were places where they knew that a steady supply of food would be created.

But wealth was tied to land, and those who controlled land, controlled much of the world’s wealth. And the difficulty was in shipping or moving anything: things, ideas, people. It was very difficult to move anything, so there wasn’t very much trade. And so, the cost of moving things really mattered and shaped the way societies were formed.

This triggered most families into giving birth to more children as this does not only improve their trade but also showed their strength. Then the level of education was still low and there was no much dependence on education so the parents were not concerned about education but rather that the children become successful farmers and get married, start up their family and multiply their produce.

Casual observation of data on fertility rates would suggest that having children is an inferior good. Across countries, there is a strong negative correlation between GDP and fertility, and within countries there is a strong negative correlation between household income and fertility. That is, richer countries have lower fertility rates than poor ones, and high-income families in a given country have fewer kids than low-income families do.
But there are two major challenges to interpreting these correlations as evidence that income causes fertility to drop.

First, individuals and families with higher incomes often have other characteristics such as higher education levels, stronger commitment to the labor force, or a preference to live in urban locations that distinguish them from the general population and might affect their fertility decisions.

Second, the observed relationship between income and fertility might simply reflect the effect that fertility decisions have on income (rather than the other way around).

THE ATTENDANT CONSEQUENCES (POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE) OF SUCH ACTIONS
More Children in the economy shows that the level of fertility is high and the economy is productive. This is at the International level. At the Family level, it is not advisable to have more children than your income because the task of taking care of them has increased over the years. Children suffer from malnutrition and various diseases because of lack of proper care. The more these children grow without education, good moral upbringing, they tend to form the rouges in the society and this tends to increase the crime rate.
More Children is good but more children without enough resources is exposing the children to suffering in their early upbringing which is not ideal.

ISAAC BLESSING CHIYANTIRIMAM
2017/242942
ECONOMICS
ECO362
The reasons for the numerous child birth in poor families (mostly Africans) is due to ancient orientation by our forefathers who believed having lots of children especially the males would out stretch the family name which they believe should enjoy continuity. Having lots of siblings who could give you advice and direct you on the right part when the parents are no where to be found is a treasure we should trash out. Probability of these children to become independent bodies recognised and acknowledge by the society would be of the greater good of the parents. Some of these reasons are;
1. High child mortality rates. Imagine living in a place where your children’s lives are constantly threatened. There’s not enough nutritious food, limited access to clean water, inadequate housing, poor health care and minimal government support. All of these factors contribute to child mortality and parents in poverty know this keenly. According to the World Health Organization, 5.4 million children under five are dying every year, with most of these children in developing countries.
2. Lack of education. Girls who marry and begin their families in adolescence are much less likely to finish school and go on to model educational values for their children. They are also likely to have more kids, making it difficult to afford the cost of education for each child.
3. Religious beliefs. In many faiths, children are seen as an enormous blessing. Religious texts and scripture can enforce this idea and often act as a strong guiding influence in people’s lives. And the saying that children are blessings from God which increases birth rate by poor .
4. Limited finances. Families in poverty, particularly those who make their living through agriculture, may have more kids as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children are often tasked with chores like walking to collect water, gardening, field work and animal care, even when they’re very young. In more dire situations, children may enter the labour force often illegally to earn more income for the family’s survival.
5. Lack of access to affordable reproductive health care and birth control options. At least in the US, the cuts in funding to clinics like Planned Parenthood and such mean that there are fewer of them in general, especially in poorer areas. Some of the consequences are increase in crime rate, increase in unemployment rate, high level of poverty etc.

Name:Oroke charity Nnedimma
Reg no :2017/243816
Department:Economics
E-mail: amieeukpaka@gmail.com
Course code: Eco 362
Bank, in full World Bank Group, international organization​affiliated with the United Nations (UN) and designed to finance projects that enhance the economic development of member states. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the bank is the largest source of financial assistance to developing countries. It also provides technical assistance and policy advice and supervises—on behalf of international creditors—the implementation of free-market reforms. Together with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization, it plays a central role in overseeing economic policy and reforming public institutions in developing countries and defining the global macroeconomic agenda.
The World Bank Group comprises five constituent institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). The IBRD provides loans at market rates of interest to middle-income developing countries and creditworthy lower-income countries. The IDA, founded in 1960, provides interest-free long-term loans, technical assistance, and policy advice to low-income developing countries in areas such as health, education, and rural development. Whereas the IBRD raises most of its funds on the world’s capital markets, the IDA’s lending operations are financed through contributions from developed countries. The IFC, operating in partnership with private investors, provides loans and loan guarantees and equity financing to business undertakings in developing countries. Loan guarantees and insurance to foreign investors against loss caused by noncommercial risks in developing countries are provided by the MIGA. Finally, the ICSID, which operates independently of the IBRD, is responsible for the settlement by conciliation or arbitration of investment disputes between foreign investors and their host developing countries.
From 1968 to 1981 the president of the World Bank was former U.S. secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara. Under his leadership the bank formulated the concept of “sustainable development,” which attempted to reconcile economic growth and environmental protection in developing countries. Another feature of the concept was its use of capital flows (in the form of development assistance and foreign investment) to developing countries as a means of narrowing the income gap between rich and poor countries. The bank has expanded its lending activities and, with its numerous research and policy divisions, has developed into a powerful and authoritative intergovernmental body.
World Bank and IMF Debt And Policy Reform
The debt crisis of the early 1980s—during which many developing countries were unable to service their external debt to multilateral lending institutions, because of a slowdown in the world economy, high interest rates, a decline in commodity prices, and wide fluctuations in oil prices, among other factors—played a crucial role in the evolution of World Bank operations. The bank had become increasingly involved in shaping economic and social policies in indebted developing countries. As a condition of receiving loans, borrowing countries were required to implement stringent “structural adjustment programs,” which typically included severe cuts in spending for health and education, the elimination of price controls, the liberalization of trade, the deregulation of the financial sector, and the privatization of state-run enterprises. Although intended to restore economic stability, these programs, which were applied in a large number of countries throughout the developing world, frequently resulted in increased levels of poverty, mounting unemployment, and a spiraling external debt. In the wake of the debt crisis, the World Bank focused its efforts on providing financial assistance in the form of balance-of-payments support and loans for infrastructural projects such as roads, port facilities, schools, and hospitals. Although emphasizing poverty alleviation and debt relief for the world’s least developed countries, the bank has retained its commitment to economic stabilization policies that require the implementation of austerity measures by recipient countries.
The World Bank and the IMF played central roles in overseeing free-market reforms in eastern and central Europe after the fall of communism there in the 1980s and ’90s. The reforms, which included the creation of bankruptcy and privatization programs, were controversial because they frequently led to the closure of state-run industrial enterprises. “Exit mechanisms” to allow for the liquidation of so-called “problem enterprises” were put into place, and labour laws were modified to enable enterprises to lay off unneeded workers. The larger state enterprises often were sold to foreign investors or divided into smaller, privately owned companies. In Hungary, for example, some 17,000 businesses were liquidated and 5,000 reorganized in 1992–93, leading to a substantial increase in unemployment. The World Bank also provided reconstruction loans to countries that suffered internal conflicts or other crises (e.g., the successor republics of former Yugoslavia in the late 1990s). This financial assistance did not succeed in rehabilitating productive infrastructure, however. In several countries the macroeconomic reforms resulted in increased inflation and a marked decline in the standard of living.
The World Bank is the world’s largest multilateral creditor institution, and as such many of the world’s poorest countries owe it large sums of money. Indeed, for dozens of the most heavily indebted poor countries, the largest part of their external debt—in some cases constituting more than 50 percent—is owed to the World Bank and the multilateral regional development banks. According to some analysts, the burden of these debts—which according to the bank’s statutes cannot be canceled or rescheduled—has perpetuated economic stagnation throughout the developing world.

Name: Anthony Oluchi Precious
Reg. No.: 2017/249486
Department: Economics
The reasons why the poor have more children than the rich can be attributed to the following reasons:
(i) Difference in Mindset: There is a saying that goes thus, “poverty is a disease”. I believe this is true because there is a way poverty makes one to think. It can be noticed that Most poor people feel the normal way of life is just to be fruitful and multiply and God will take care of the rest, they don’t consider the fact that planning for the oncoming children is a very vital issue that would go a long way. But the rich, mostly, believes that one need to plan ahead for whatever he wants to go into, including reproducing.
(ii) Underdevelopment of the Nation they find themselves in: One would agree that the number or percentage of people in underdeveloped countries like Nigeria(poor nation) that are aware of the thing called family planning is less than that of the developed countries(rich). This stands as a major reason because it can not be denied that prior to now, when Nigeria was still totally underdeveloped, and is characterized only by subsistence agricultural activities. Which would most likely include absence of the knowledge of family planning and what it entails, the then society(characterized by poverty) didn’t see any wrong or harm in giving birth to many children. Infact, it made them feel more honoured and affluent.
(iii) Financial barrier: Most of these poor families can hardly feed, talk more of to afford expenses pertaining to birth control, but the rich can afford birth control pills and the cost of having family planning.
The positive consequences, if at all there is any, would be very few because more children automatically means more work load and responsibility for the family, and the government.
The negative consequences can be :
* Overpopulation leading to increase in unemployment rate and hence, wage rate
* Decrease in percapital income and possibilities of attaining development
* It widens the financial gap between the poor and the rich. The poor gets poorer because they have more children to take care of with the very little income.
* Increase in deathrate

IJIGA CHRISTIAN ADAKOLE
207/241255
EDUCATION ECONOMICS

ECO 362 ASSIGNMENT

DISCUSS THE REASONS WHY THE POOR HAVE MORE CHILDREN THAN THE RICH, AND THE ATTENDANT CONSEQUENCES (POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE).
The are many reasons to why the poor have more children than the rich. Some of the reasons are;
1. A rich man have many ways of enjoying him self due to his financial status while a poor man is limited to what he can enjoy and as such find pleasure in the wife and this will result in giving birth to more children.
2.Limited contraception: Most women in developing Countries would like to delay or stop child bearing, but are not using contraceptive. Most of these women live in the poorest countries on earth. In Africa, one in four women of reproductive age have an unmet need for modern contraception. This is due to many reasons including limited information, options of contraceptive methods and access to contraception, or religious or cultural opposition and poor quality of available services.
3.Forced early marriage: Forced early marriage is any marriage where the persons is below 18years and hasn’t given their fill assent to be married. Therefore when a girl is married young, her childbearing years starts much earlier meaning that she is likely to have more kids.
5.Lack of education: Girls who marry and begin their families in adolescence are much less likely to finish school and go on to model educational values for their children.
POSITIVE CONSEQUENCES
There are many perceived economic, psychological and social benefits to having children. Firstly, the perceived economic costs are expected financial support by children in the parents’ old age and additional workers to contribute to contribution to the household production and income. Secondly, the psychological value derived from having children includes companionship, love, stimulation and the extension of family name across generations. Finally, there are many social advantages of having children such as providing parents with important community roles, making the transition to adulthood or being accepted by other family members (East- West Population Institute 1989).
NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES
On the other hand, there are many economic, psychological and physical costs to having children. Economic costs include both direct costs such as those of food, clothing and education and also indirect costs such as the mother’s potential loss of income because of responsibilities of childbearing. The psychological burden consists of restrictions on parents’ freedom, loss of flexibility, a reduction in free time and an increase in worries. Finally, the physical strain faced by couples is related to work of bearing and rearing children (East-West Population Institute 1989).

Name: Okonkwo Faith Munachi
Reg. No.: 2017/242422
E-mail: faith.okonkwo.242422@unn.edu.ng

Answer
Why Do the Poor Have More Children?
Fertility rates tend to be higher among the poor. There are many social, cultural, religious and economic reasons why poor people have large families or give birth to more children; this is mostly evident in developing countries as their poverty levels keeps increasing. Some of these reasons include:
1. High child mortality rates
Because child mortality rates in the developing world are so high, parents may intentionally have large families because the grim reality is that sometimes children don’t survive.
2. Limited access to education
Generally, the higher the degree of education and GDP per capita a country has, the lower the birth rate. Women with some formal education are more likely than uneducated women to use contraception, marry later, and have fewer children.
There are a few reasons why education is connected to a lower birth rate:
• Increasing girls’ participation in school over time also decreases fertility rates. An educated woman is likely to marry at a later age and have fewer children. A study in Guatemala found that for each additional year a young woman spent in school, the age at which she had her first child was delayed approximately six to 10 months.
• Educating girls also helps women control how many children they have.
3. Early marriage and gender roles
In some countries, a woman’s role is expected to be as a wife and mother. This may often mean she gets married younger and begins having children sooner. In developing countries, one in every three girls is married before age 18. Married girls are often under pressure to become pregnant as soon as possible. This typically means an end to a girl’s education, which can limit her life choices and help perpetuate the cycle of poverty.
4. Limited access to contraception
An estimated 225 million women in developing countries would like to delay or stop childbearing, but are not using any method of contraception. Most of these women live in the poorest countries on earth. In Africa, one in four women of reproductive age have an unmet need for modern contraception. This is due to many reasons, including limited information, options of contraceptive methods and access to contraception, or cultural or religious opposition and poor quality of available services. Supply chains often don’t extend to remote or rural areas, where families in extreme poverty tend to live.
5. Care for elders
In some developing countries, the government doesn’t provide a pension or social security benefit, so parents must rely on their children to care for them in their old age. Couples may choose to have large families to ensure they are supported when they’re older
6. Need for extra labour
More than 70 per cent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, with most families depending on labour-intensive agriculture to survive. In these communities, there can be a cultural expectation to have big families to combat their need for extra labour. Usually, farmers who live off their harvest can’t afford to pay extra labourers and can only depend on themselves and their children. For them, a large family might be the only assurance for survival.
7. Religion
Religious beliefs in many faiths see children as enormous blessing. Religious texts and scripture can enforce this idea and often act as a strong guiding influence in people’s lives. When a life philosophy is engrained in the belief that your offspring will be provided for and that children are incredible gifts, it stands to reason that couples would embrace the idea of a large family. Religious beliefs may mean a family chooses not to use contraceptives.
8. Limited finances
Families in poverty, particularly those who make their living through agriculture, may have more kids as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children are often tasked with chores like walking to collect water, gardening, field work and animal care, even when they’re very young. In more dire situations, children may enter the labour force—often illegally—to earn more income for the family’s survival.
Developed countries tend to have a lower fertility rate due to lifestyle choices associated with economic affluence where mortality rates are low, birth control is easily accessible and children often can become an economic drain caused by housing, education cost and other cost involved in bringing up children. The see children as inferior goods and are concerned about the quality and not quantity of the children.
CONSEQUENCES OF MORE CHILDREN OR LARGE FAMILIES
Low per Capita Income:
Slow growth rate or low per capita income has been the result of high growth rate of population despite high national income in certain years.

Burden of Unproductive Consumers:
The number of unproductive consumers is increasing in poor countries. Unproductive consumers are those who are not employed but they do consume. They include children below the age of 15 years and old persons who are above the age of 60 years. It is not that all children and old persons are not employed. A few among them may be employed part-time or full time. It is also possible that some persons in the age group 15-59 years may not be engaged in any work. So it is difficult to estimate correctly the number of unproductive consumers (or non-working population).

Increase in Unemployment:
With rapid increase in population, the most daunting task in poor countries is to provide employment not only to the growing labour force every year, but also to reduce the backlog of the unemployed from the previous years.
Low standard of Living
The rapidly growing population has kept the standard of living of the majority at a very low level. The low quality of life is reflected in the deprivation in knowledge by illiteracy, deprivation in economic provisioning by the percentage of people lacking access to health services and safe water and the percentage of children under five who are moderately or severely underweight.

Burden on Public Utility Services:
Rapid increase in population puts a heavy burden on social infrastructure like health care, education, housing (both rural and urban), water supply, sanitation, power, roads, railways, etc.

Adverse Effects on Saving, Investment and Capital Formation:
One of the most serious effects of rapidly increasing population is on saving and investment and the rate of capital formation in the country. This high burden of dependency reduces the capacity of people to save. Such persons do not produce anything but they do consume. They are supported by their families. The majority of such families have low incomes. Such persons are a drag on the economic development of the country. They are to a great extent responsible for low rate of saving, low rate of investment and low rate of capital formation.

Ultimately, rapid population growth as a result of too many children especially by the poor has undermined the quality of life of people. Society’s responsibility extends beyond simply ensuring the survival of the population. Society must strive to provide people with a good life–one with dignity.
Given the highly complex nature of the population problem, efforts must be made on many fronts including:
1) Family planning promotion.
2) Improvements in education, health, and social conditions for high fertility populations.
3) Enhancement of worker skills.
4) Rapid progress in technology.
5) Greater capital accumulation and economic reorganization.

ANENE VICTORIA CHIOMA
2017/242435
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT
Victoria.anene.242435@unn.edu.ng
Toria20@simplesite.com

There exist a huge gap between the number of children given birth by those considered poor than the number of children given birth by those considered rich is an economy. These difference exist as a result of certain actions which increase the chances of the poor having more children compared to the rich. Some of the Factor responsible for larger families include;
-Higher preference for male child: This is a major attribute to the amount of children given birth to in most poor families. The male child is considered important as they are the ones to continue the family line while the female child are said to leave them after a certain period and so are not their entirely.so when a family is unable to give birth to a considerable number of male children they continue to give birth thereby increasing the family. Child discrimination is not as common to the rich as it is to the poor, the rich see each child equal as far as they are able to prove both their male and female children with equal love and opportunity..
–Early marriage: The female children from poor families are groomed with the sole aim of getting married, and when this eventually happens they are under the pressure to give birth to children immediately. This typically means an end to a girl’s education, which can limit her life choices and help perpetuate the cycle of poverty. While the female children of the rich are send to school to attain the highest level of education which limits the number of children they can give birth to considering their age before getting married.
-Limited access to contraceptive-Most poor women would want to delay or stop childbearing but are not using any method of contraceptive. This is due to many reasons, including limited information, options of contraceptive methods and access to contraception, or cultural or religious opposition and poor quality of available services. Supply chains often don’t extend to remote or rural areas, where families in extreme poverty tend to. The rich have access to education which include family planning which helps plan their childbearing.
-Care for elders: In some developing countries, the government doesn’t provide a pension or social security benefit, so parents must rely on their children to care for them in their old age. Couples may choose to have large families to ensure they are supported when they’re while the rich enjoy pension scheme and insurance policies which help provide for them when they are old so they do not entirely rely on their children in their old age.
-Need for extra labour: Most of the poor live in the rural areas of the country with most families relying on labour-intensive agriculture to survive. In these communities, there can be a cultural expectation to have big families to combat their need for extra labour. Usually, farmers who live off their harvest can’t afford to pay extra labourers and can only depend on themselves and their children. For them, a large family might be the only assurance for while the rich have white collar jobs which do not require them giving birth to children for the success since labour could be employed.

Egbo Chinemelum Chinonso
2017/249493
egboemecs@gmail.com

Reasons Why the Poor Tend to Have More Children Than the Rich

There are many social, cultural and economic reasons why the poor tend to have more children than the rich.

Lack of education: There is no family planning. The resources available to provide for the family, and the health effects of bearing so many children on the woman- such things are rarely considered.

Religious beliefs. In many faiths, children are seen as an enormous blessing. Religious texts and scripture can enforce this idea and often act as a strong guiding influence in people’s lives. When a life philosophy is engrained in the belief that your offspring will be provided for and that children are incredible gifts, it stands to reason that couples would embrace the idea of a large family.

Limited finances. Families in poverty, particularly those who make their living through agriculture, may have more kids as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children are often tasked with chores like walking to collect water, gardening, field work and animal care, even when they’re very young. In more dire situations, children may enter the labor force-often illegally-to earn more income for the family’s survival.

Care for elders. As children grow up, they not only carry on their family’s legacy, but also the responsibility of providing for and protecting their parents and siblings. This is especially important in countries without strong governmental safety nets. In these cases, having more kids may provide an extra sense of security for parents, with the added hope that one day, one or more children may be successful enough to lift the entire family out of poverty.

Need for extra labor: More than 70 per cent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, with most families depending on labor-intensive agriculture to survive. In these communities, there can be a cultural expectation to have big families to combat their need for extra labour. Usually, farmers who live off their harvest can’t afford to pay extra laborers and can only depend on themselves and their children. For them, a large family might be the only assurance for survival.

Lack of access to health services. It’s not always misconceptions that prevent people from practicing family planning-sometimes it’s the lack of accessible health care. For some, health clinics are located far from their homes and villages, making it difficult to travel to get needed support. In especially rural areas, a lack of infrastructure, roads and transportation can also be a barrier toward receiving professional medical care.

EMEGBUE BENJAMIN
2017/241452
Economics Department.

High fertility has over the years been associated with poor families for numerous reasons which are not limited to:

1. Lack Of Women Education/Ignorance: Ignorance is one of the leading factor for the high fertility rate in poor families, since the families involved know little or nothing about family planning or birth control.

2. Inaccessibility To Family Planning Ideas: Contraceptions and other instruments of family planning are not accessible by families in poor neighborhood because of lack of purchasing funds, most times these instruments and materials to prevent indiscriminate child birth are not affordable.

3. Religious/Cultural Reasons: Some religion believe in polygamy and high level of child bearing also certain cultures is children as a means of gauging family prestige.

POSITIVE IMPACT
The increase in fertility would lead to increase in population, labour(work) force and also productivity. It will also increase the political influence and voting strength of such people/community.

NEGATIVE IMPACT
Increased fertility will lead to increase in budget spending, it’s adverse effect here will normally cause strains in the family, increased fertility will also cause no availability of sufficient resources to feed, educate and provide good health care for children.

OMADA DORATHY AMARACHUKWU
REG NO: 2017/243131
EDUCATION ECONOMICS
DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS II
ECO 362
amarachidora8@gmail.com
dorathyamarachi.blogspot.com

It is argued that the poor who suffers serious deprivation in basic needs and see little opportunity for their children’s education and their opportunities feel little interest in controlling their family size, for them it would not matter how many children they may bear since the intensity of their poverty ratio and food consumption to subsistence ratio marginality improve as the number that a family planning programme to succeed, it must be part of an anti- poverty strategy. Here are some of my candid reasons why the poor tend to have more children than the rich.
1. Misconceptions about family planning
In many communities like Nigeria for instance, stigmas against contraception still exist. These beliefs can originate from a variety of sources including breakdowns in public health, education, cultural biases and even skepticism about the motives of the government in controlling family size. Often they contribute to the cultivation of fear and confusion using certain family planning methods.
2. Lack of access to health services
It is not always misconceptions that prevent people from practicing family planning sometimes, it is lack of accessible health care. For some, health clinics are located far from their homes and villages making it difficult to travel to get needed support in especially rural areas, a lack of infrastructure, roads and transportation can also be a barrier towards receiving professional medical care.
3. Forced early marriage
Forced early marriage is any marriage where either person is under 18 and has not been given their full consent to be married. It happens for many reasons and teenage girls are by far the most vulnerable. When a girl is married young, her child bearing years start much earlier, meaning- among other complications she is likely to have more children.
4. Lack of education
Girls who marry and begin their families in adolescence are likely to have more children making it difficult to afford the cost of education for each child. On the other hand, women who go further in their education tend to have fewer children, they often marry later in life and are more likely to prioritize their own children’s education, understanding the finance it will require.
5. Limited finances
Families in poverty particularly those who make their living through agriculture may have more children as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children are often tasked with chores like walking to collect water, gardening, field work and animal care, even when they are very young. In more dire situations children may enter the labour force, often illegally to earn more income for the family’s survival.
6. Family legacy
For many, the desire to preserve lineage, history and a family name can feel like a natural, human instinct. It is not common for parents to be parental to passing on their own genetics to continue their family legacy.
Consequences of large family size on the quality of individual lives
The large size of a family affects the quality of life of the individual in the following ways:
1. Many members of large family grow up in hostile environment
2. There will be Jealousy and envy in the large family
3. Access to good and qualitative education might not be possible because of shortage in family size
4. There is tendency of fighting with one another in a big family
5. Room occupancy ratio will be high in a large family. Over population per room might occur
6. The members may be malnourished, that is they may not be able to feed well.
CONCLUSION
Having seen the following reasons why poor families tend to have more children than the rich and the consequences that may occur when having large families which affect the quality of life of the individual, I believe that there should be various precautions that should be taking when setting up a family, especially in Nigeria as a case study in order to avoid problems that may occur.

OMADA DORATHY AMARACHUKWU
REG NO: 2017/243131
EDUCATION ECONOMICS
DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS II
ECO 362
amarachidora8@gmail.com
dorathyamarachi.blogspot.com

It is argued that the poor who suffers serious deprivation in basic needs and see little opportunity for their children’s education and their opportunities feel little interest in controlling their family size, for them it would not matter how many children they may bear since the intensity of their poverty ratio and food consumption to subsistence ratio marginality improve as the number that a family planning programme to succeed, it must be part of an anti- poverty strategy. Here are some of my candid reasons why the poor tend to have more children than the rich.
1. Misconceptions about family planning
In many communities like Nigeria for instance, stigmas against contraception still exist. These beliefs can originate from a variety of sources including breakdowns in public health, education, cultural biases and even skepticism about the motives of the government in controlling family size. Often they contribute to the cultivation of fear and confusion using certain family planning methods.
2. Lack of access to health services
It is not always misconceptions that prevent people from practicing family planning sometimes, it is lack of accessible health care. For some, health clinics are located far from their homes and villages making it difficult to travel to get needed support in especially rural areas, a lack of infrastructure, roads and transportation can also be a barrier towards receiving professional medical care.
3. Forced early marriage
Forced early marriage is any marriage where either person is under 18 and has not been given their full consent to be married. It happens for many reasons and teenage girls are by far the most vulnerable. When a girl is married young, her child bearing years start much earlier, meaning- among other complications she is likely to have more children.
4. Lack of education
Girls who marry and begin their families in adolescence are likely to have more children making it difficult to afford the cost of education for each child. On the other hand, women who go further in their education tend to have fewer children, they often marry later in life and are more likely to prioritize their own children’s education, understanding the finance it will require.
5. Limited finances
Families in poverty particularly those who make their living through agriculture may have more children as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children are often tasked with chores like walking to collect water, gardening, field work and animal care, even when they are very young. In more dire situations children may enter the labour force, often illegally to earn more income for the family’s survival.
6. Family legacy
For many, the desire to preserve lineage, history and a family name can feel like a natural, human instinct. It is not common for parents to be parental to passing on their own genetics to continue their family legacy.
Consequences of large family size on the quality of individual lives
The large size of a family affects the quality of life of the individual in the following ways:
1. Many members of large family grow up in hostile environment
2. There will be Jealousy and envy in the large family
3. Access to good and qualitative education might not be possible because of shortage in family size
4. There is tendency of fighting with one another in a big family
5. Room occupancy ratio will be high in a large family. Over population per room might occur
6. The members may be malnourished, that is they may not be able to feed well.
CONCLUSION
Having seen the following reasons why poor families tend to have more children than the rich and the consequences that may occur when having large families which affect the quality of life of the individual, I believe that there should be various precautions that should be taking when setting up a family, especially in Nigeria as a case study in order to avoid problems that may occur.

Ogba ifeanyi favour
2017/243369
Economics
oifeanyi621@gmail.com

The poor tend to have more children than the rich
The rich always think about quality while the poor believe in quantity – the poor don’t always considered the quality of the children upbring while the rich always have that in mind that why their number of children are very few so they can give them the best of life (quality ) quality education, quality upbringing and so on . Picturing the northern part of Nigeria with the highest rate of school drop out and which is occupied by the poor class .The poor only give birth for satisfaction of feeling and nothing else compared to the rich that consider the impact of the children in the school .
Wrong mindset – The poor believe that the more children you have the closer your chance of getting a better child out of the many .so they keep on multiplying the number hoping they will have chance of producing future governor and president 😂.
Idleness – the poor is always idle and those not engaged in productive active rather than sex , they are always so jobless And they see their wife as a place for relaxation of all time .Like wise the rich that is always occupied with alot of productive activity which is time consuming and there is little time for such
Education – the poor is not educated to understand about children and their purpose in the society they see children function of re production and not a pillar of the society or product of purpose in the society
The poor see children as a edge for the future like the more they reproduce alot of children ,when they go old alot of their children will take care of them .
The poor don’t engaged in family planning and various ways of controlling child birth due to ignorance .

NWOBODO IFEANYICHUKWU VICTOR
2017/249535
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT
Many characteristics of poverty lead to high level of child birth. They include:
– High infant mortality leading parents to more children to reduce their risk of childlessness. That is, children serve as a form of insurance.
-Lack of education or enlightenment on family planning
– Inaccessibility to family planning
-Early marriage
– Cultural factors; as some cultures sees a large family as a sign of family wealth and status
POSITIVE EFFECTS
-Large number of children can increase a family’s chance of social mobility
– Children acts as a form of safety net as aging parents struggle to support themselves in the absence of retirement savings and pension funds.
NEGATIVE EFFECTS
– low life expectancy
-Low to living standard
-Low level of education
– Increase population and if productivity isn’t increased this can lead a Nation to fall into the Malthusian trap.

NAME: Emmanuel Treasure Adanne
Department: Economics
Reg No: 2017/242436
Email address: http://www.treasureadaemmanuel@gmail.com
Website: treshvinaemman54.blogspot.com
Answer:
Poor families have more children than the rich ones due to the following ressons:
1. Poor families have misconceptions about family planning. In many communities, stigmas against contraception still exist. These beliefs can originate from a variety of sources, including breakdowns in public health education, cultural biases and even scepticism about the motives of the government in controlling family size. Often, they contribute to the cultivation of fear and confusion over using certain family planning methods.

2.Lack of access to health services. It’s not always misconceptions that prevent poor people from practicing family planning—sometimes it’s the lack of accessible health care. For some, health clinics are located far from their homes and villages, making it difficult to travel to get needed support. In especially rural areas, a lack of infrastructure, roads and transportation can also be a barrier toward receiving professional medical care. And even the ones available, they become quite expensive that the poor ones cannot afford them.
3. Lack of education. Girls who marry and begin their families in adolescence are much less likely to finish school and go on to model educational values for their children. They are also likely to have more kids, making it difficult to afford the cost of education for each child. and we can find these group of girls amongs the poor ones. On the other hand, women who go further in their education tend to have fewer children. They often marry later in life and are more likely to prioritize their own children’s education, understanding the financial investment it will require.
4. Limited finances. Families in poverty, particularly those who make their living through agriculture, may have more kids as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children are often tasked with chores like walking to collect water, gardening, field work and animal care, even when they’re very young. In more dire situations, children may enter the labour force—often illegally—to earn more income for the family’s survival.

5. Care for elders. As children grow up, they not only carry on their family’s legacy, but also the responsibility of providing for and protecting their parents and siblings. This is especially important in countries without strong governmental safety nets. In these cases, poor families believe that having more kids may provide an extra sense of security for parents, with the added hope that one day, one or more children may be successful enough to lift the entire family out of poverty.
However there are some positive consequences of many children or high birth rates from poor families and they include:
1. Less workers: As birth rates fall which is evident in rich families, working-age populations eventually fall as well. This leads to labor shortages in countries where the working-age populations are in decline, thus reducing the rate of development due to lack or reduced competition.
2. Rich families with lower birth rates and falling working-age populations also mean that there are fewer consumers. This reduces the opportunities to generate growth on the domestic market, leaving those countries with low birth rates more exposed to external shocks.
Conclusion
Having more children means a young population and working class. However it comes with its disadvantages as it leads to over population. And coupled with the fact that these ones might end up uneducated poses a threat to the society since it will lead to survival of the fittest, these poor children will end up engaging in just anything just to make ends meet. Thus leading to increased crime rate, insecurity, low standard of living, etc.
The lack of access to family planning and to modern methods of contraception is the major cause of this persistence in high fertility. Smaller family size allows for greater investment in the health and education of children in the longer term both from the family and government.

Name: Okaforukwu chizaram sandra

Reg no: 2017/249551

Reasons why the poor tend to have more children than the rich .

We believe that every child is a valuable gift of God in compassion: ‘The children are a Lordship, they have been rewarded by him.’ Psalm 127:3. Psalms. If a family wishes to grow for social, cultural, religious, or economic purposes, it is our duty as a society to care for our most vulnerable members. We look here at some of the factors contributing to bigger families.

1. Early and gender marriage roles
In many developing countries mostly from poor families the girls are often sent off for marriage at very young age (13-18) pending on when she’s fully a woman . Some cultures/traditions believe that the role of a woman is and should be to produce children or rather makes her husband happy ,this means the younger she gets married the sooner she procreates. Girls married under the ages of 18 are mostly under pressure to produce children which in turn kills whatever dreams or aspirations she has and limits her life choices and helps perpetuate a cycle of poverty( this happen mostly in poor families). Where the female child in forced or sent of for marriage in exchange for the dowry that will be paid to the family.

2. Source of wealth
In many poor families ,larger number of children are seen or a believed to be source of wealth in the family . Just like the rich look at their assets , the poor see a large number of children as a chance to break out of poverty ( the more the children the chances of one of them becoming successful).

3. Need for extra labour
More than 70% of the world’s poor live in rural areas, with most families relying on labor-intensive agriculture to survive. To compensate for the need for extra labor, there may be a cultural expectation in these communities to have large families. Farmers living off harvest usually cannot afford to pay extra workers and only rely on themselves and their children. A large family could be the only survival assurance for them.

4. Religion
Religious beliefs may lead to a family’s refusal to use contraception. Also many communities lack access to family planning services due to social norms and religious tradition. Affordable contraception and health-care options for remote or rural communities are scarce.

5. Zero form of entertainment
There are no hobbies or recreational activities available to the poor. The only source of relaxation and pleasure is having sex and more sex, and in the process of engaging in this one and only form of entertainment, they tend to produce more offspring.

6. Lack of awareness
Many poor people are unaware of birth control methods due to a lack of awareness. Many people are unable to afford or want to spend money on them even if they are aware of it.

Asika joy ogechukwu
2017/242025
Economics dept
joy.asika.242025@gmail .com

Families in poverty, particularly those who make their living through agriculture tends to have more children in order to support the family’s Livelihood. The reasons why the poor have more chldren are as follows:
1. Limited contraception: Most women in developing Countries would like to delay or stop child bearing, but are not using contraceptive. Most of these women live in the poorest countries on earth. In Africa, one in four women of reproductive age have an unmet need for modern contraception. This is due to many reasons including limited information, options of contraceptive methods and access to contraception, or religious or cultural opposition and poor quality of available services.
2. Forced early marriage: Forced early marriage is any marriage where the persons is below 18years and hasn’t given their fill assent to be married. Therefore when a girl is married young, her childbearing years starts much earlier meaning that she is likely to have more kids.
3. Lack of education: Girls who marry and begin their families in adolescence are much less likely to finish school and go on to model educational values for their children.

Asika joy ogechukwu
Economics dept
joy.asika.242025@unn.edu.ng
2017/242025

High reproduction with little or no significant impact to the labour force has a great impact on aggregate demand and according to the Malthusian theory we are made to understand that overpopulation with little growing economy should be avoided. Coming down to the immediate family,a family with lots of children would basically not have enough resources to properly train and cater for the essentials of life. Then why bring a child to the world with so much discomfort and all. And the truth is the more children you bore,the more problems you’d encounter because training a child who would be beneficial to himself family and society at large is a big duty.
But then amongst these negative lies the fact that most families with lots of offspring even though are not well to do,tend to be happy and then we understand the link between happiness and development. Having lots of siblings who could give you advice and direct you on the right part when the parents are no where to be found is a treasure we should trash out. Probability of these children to become independent bodies recognised and acknowledge by the society would be of the greater good of the parents. So it’s actually left for the parents to decide through family planning if they are ready to bear the cross,start the reproductive.

OKORORIE EMMANUEL KELECHI
2017/242947
ECONOMICS
manuelokororie@gmail.com

Discuss the reasons why the poor have more children than the rich and the attendant consequences (positive and negative) of such actions based on your opinion.

High child mortality rates: Because child mortality rates in the developing world are so high, parents may intentionally have large families because the grim reality is that sometimes children don’t survive. In Burkina Faso, a shocking 8.5 per cent of children will die before reaching their fifth birthday; in Haiti, it’s 6.7 per cent. For comparison, in Australia, the same figure is 0.4 per cent.

Early marriage and gender roles: In some countries, a woman’s role is expected to be as a wife and mother. This may often mean she gets married younger and begins having children sooner. In developing countries, one in every three girls is married before age 18. Married girls are often under pressure to become pregnant as soon as possible. This typically means an end to a girl’s education, which can limit her life choices and help perpetuate the cycle of poverty.

Care for elders: In some developing countries, the government doesn’t provide a pension or social security benefit, so parents must rely on their children to care for them in their old age. Couples may choose to have large families to ensure they are supported when they’re older. For example, in India, children and grandchildren are legally required to provide food, accommodation, and health care for their parents if they are unable to provide for themselves.

Need for extra labour: More than 70 per cent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, with most families depending on labour-intensive agriculture to survive. In these communities, there can be a cultural expectation to have big families to combat their need for extra labour. Usually, farmers who live off their harvest can’t afford to pay extra labourers and can only depend on themselves and their children. For them, a large family might be the only assurance for survival.

NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES
Children and families living and growing up in poverty and low-income households experience many disadvantages. These can have negative health and social consequences during childhood and into adulthood.
Poorer health and wellbeing: There are several ways in which living in poverty can lead to poorer health outcomes in children, as well as into adulthood.

Being exposed to some or all of the key factors below, as well as the accumulation of exposure over time, can adversely impact on child development and health outcomes.
Limited money for everyday resources – including good quality housing.
Stress of living in poverty.
Unhealthy lifestyles.
Poorer education and employment opportunities.
Children’s experience of poverty can also lead to bullying, or feelings of exclusion, as they may have fewer friends and less access to the social activities of their peers.

Health inequalities: When considering health inequalities, children growing up in poverty or in the most deprived areas are at greater risk of poorer health outcomes than children from better off families or from more affluent areas.
This can be seen in:
higher infant mortality rate
low birthweight
risk of being overweight or obese
not being breastfed
tooth decay
unintentional injury
poorer general health and mental wellbeing
teenage pregnancy.
Poverty is also a risk factor for experiencing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Having high numbers of ACEs has been found to be related to deprivation with a higher proportion of people in the most deprived areas reporting ACEs.

POSITIVE CONSEQUENCES
Poor peoples having many kids increases the probability of one of the kids become successful and liberating the entire family from the vicious cycle of poverty. Cases like this has occurred in our society where kids born into poor homes, struggled and became very successful in their respective careers.

A large, united and peaceful family establishes a strong sense of security amongst members of the family.

NAME: EZEUGWU AUGUSTINE OKECHUKWU
DEPT: ECONOMICS
REG NO: 2016/234579
EMAIL ADDRESS: OKEYEZEUGWU19@GMAIL.COM

Over the years, it has discovered that poor and underdeveloped countries are suffering from the menace of over population even as the level of poverty amongst individuals in those countries are increasing. As strange as this phenomenon might be it’s effect are nonetheless very brutal.
This phenomenon is caused by various reasons which include the following
1.High child mortality rate:
Imagine living in a place where your children’s lives are constantly threatened. There’s not enough nutritious food, limited access to clean water, inadequate housing, poor health care and minimal government support. All of these factors contribute to child mortality and parents in poverty know this keenly. According to the World Health Organization, 5.4 million children under five are dying every year, with most of these children in developing countries. Faced with this reality, parents may have more kids, understanding the heartbreaking truth that some of their children simply won’t survive.
2. Misconceptions about family planning:
In many communities, stigmas against contraception still exist. These beliefs can originate from a variety of sources, including breakdowns in public health education, cultural biases and even scepticism about the motives of the government in controlling family size. Often, they contribute to the cultivation of fear and confusion over using certain family planning methods.
3. Lack of access to health services:
It’s not always misconceptions that prevent people from practicing family planning—sometimes it’s the lack of accessible health care. For some, health clinics are located far from their homes and villages, making it difficult to travel to get needed support. In especially rural areas, a lack of infrastructure, roads and transportation can also be a barrier toward receiving professional medical care.
4. Lack of education:
Girls who marry and begin their families in adolescence are much less likely to finish school and go on to model educational values for their children. They are also likely to have more kids, making it difficult to afford the cost of education for each child. On the other hand, women who go further in their education tend to have fewer children. They often marry later in life and are more likely to prioritize their own children’s education, understanding the financial investment it will require.
5. Social reputation:
In a culture or community where children are viewed as blessings, the larger the family—the more blessed you are. In many parts of the underdeveloped countries, couples without children are stigmatized and looked down upon. Big families are viewed as powerful and if a woman is unable to bear children, it’s not uncommon for her husband to abandon her or begin a family with someone else.
6. Family legacy:
For many, the desire to preserve lineage, history and a family name can feel like a natural, human instinct. It’s not uncommon for parents to be partial to passing on their own genetics to continue their family legacy.
7. Limited finances:
Families in poverty, particularly those who make their living through agriculture, may have more kids as a way of supporting the family’s livelihood. Children are often tasked with chores like walking to collect water, gardening, field work and animal care, even when they’re very young. In more dire situations, children may enter the labour force—often illegally—to earn more income for the family’s survival.
8. Care for elders:
As children grow up, they not only carry on their family’s legacy, but also the responsibility of providing for and protecting their parents and siblings. This is especially important in countries without strong governmental safety nets. In these cases, having more kids may provide an extra sense of security for parents, with the added hope that one day, one or more children may be successful enough to lift the entire family out of poverty.
This phenomenon has led to so many ripple effect which can be classified in both positive and negative categories. These consequences include the following:
1. Positive Effect:
i. For families whose major source of livelihood depends on the produce they get from their farm, having too many children will be very beneficial to them because more hands will be on the farm which will invariably increase their productivity.
ii. Catering for the welfare of the elderly and aged ones in the family won’t be a problem because their is a lot children and people around to cater for their welfare.
2. Negative Effect:
i. Having too many children in a country or society that is been besetted by poverty will go along way in increasing the level of poverty in that society.
ii. Giving birth to too many children impacts the health negatively that’s why family planning has been on the lips of almost everybody.
iii. A poor family having too many children ends up making their condition worse than it was because they need to cater for those children which will require money of which they don’t have.
iv. Having too many children can affect the quality of education those children are able to receive when their parents are poor.

John R. Harris and Michael P. Todaro presented the seminal ‘Two sector model’ in American
Economic Association, 1970. This model is a pioneering study in the field encompassing rural-urban
migration. The classical theory is used in development economics and is an economic illustration of
migrants’ decision on expected income differentials between rural (agriculture) and urban
(manufacturing) areas. The model of rural-urban migration is typically studied in the context of
employment and unemployment situation in developing countries. The purpose of the model is to
explain the critical urban unemployment problem in developing countries. The key hypothesis of
Harris and Todaro’s model is that economic incentives, earnings differentials, and the probability of
getting a job at the destination have influence on the migration decision. In other words, this
theory puts forward that rural-urban migration will occur when the urban expected wage exceeds the
rural obtain wage.
The Harris-Todaro model of rural urban migration.
The migration of workers is interpreted as a process of social learning by imitation, formalized by a computational model. By simulating this model, we observe a transitional dynamics with concentration and urban unemployment. These classic results obtained originally by Harris and Todaro are emergent properties of the model.
Introduction
The model was an academic investigation to throw light on the events following ‘Tripartite
Agreement’ in Kenya. The newly independent Kenya in the 1960s was increasingly facing a serious
situation of unemployment in the major urban cities. To cope with the situation of unemployment,
Tripartite Agreement was signed between the government public sector and the private sector. The
agreement increased employment in the industrial jobs in exchange for unions agreeing to hold wages
at their current levels. The larger number of employment was expected to reduce unemployment, but
it appeared that the urban unemployment had increased following the government’s agreement. Harris
and Todaro subsequently formulated a model to explain rural-urban economic preferences to migrate.
The distinctive concept in the model is that the rate of migration flow from rural (agricultural) areas to
urban (industrial) areas is determined by the difference between expected urban wages and rural
wages.
The rural-urban two-sector model centrally holds the following futures:
1) Real wages (adjusted for cost-of-living differences) were higher in urban formal sector jobs
than in rural traditional sector jobs.
2) Tobe hired for a formal sector job, it was necessary to be physically present in the urban areas
where the formal sector jobs were located.
3) Consequently, from the first two features, more workers searched for formal sector jobs than
wereactually hired. Employers hired some of the searchers but not all of them.
4) To maintain equality between the expected wage associated with searching for an urban job
and the expected wage associated with taking up a lower-paying rural job, the equilibrium
arising in such a setting would be characterized by urban unemployment.
5) Any temporary difference in the expected wages between one sector and another would be
eroded as workers migrate from the low expected wage labour market to the high expected
wage one.
Assumption

Harris and Todaro studied the migration of workers in a two sector economic system namely, rural sector and urban sector. The difference between these sectors are the type of goods produced, the technology of production and the process of wage determination. The rural sector is specialized in the production of agricultural goods. The productive process of this sector can be described by a Cobb-Douglas production function
Ya=AaNa
Where Ya is the production level of the agricultural goods, Na is the amount of workers used in the agricultural production, As>0 and 0<f0 and 0<a<1 are parametric constants. Both goods and labour markets are perfectly competitive. Nevertheless, there is segmentation in the labour market due to a high minimum urban wage politically determined.
In the rural sector, the real wage, perfectly flexible, is equal to the marginal productivity of labour in this sector
Wa=AaNa P
Where Was is the real wage and P is the price of the agricultural goods, both expressed in units of manufactured goods. In the urban sector, a minimum wage, Wm is assumed fixed institutionally at a level above equilibrium in this labour market. It can be formalized as
Wm=aAmNm, such that Nm0 and g>0 are a parametric constants. g is the elasticity of P with respect to the ratio Ym/Ya.
The overall population of workers in the economy is Ni which is kept constant during the whole period of analysis. By assumption there are only two sectors and rural price are wholly flexible which implies that there is full employment in the rural area, that is all workers living at the rural sector are employed at any period.
Fie assumed that the wages to the transferred labour will be paid in agricultural products and as the institutional wages fixed in terms of agricultural produce, the labour transferred to the industrial sector will continue to be available at the constant wage rate i.e. that institutional wage. Ranis and Fei, on the other hand assumed that the labour in the industrial sector will be paid, in terms of the industrial products and they had to bring the hanging terms of trade into the picture. So we �nd that whereas according to Ranis and Fei, Lewis’ turning point appears as soon as phase in their model ends. according to Lewis himself, the turning point will appear at the end of the phase labour in the agricultural sector is paid institutional wages.
Coming down to what is happening in Nigeria today one will agree with both model especially on the aspect of rural urban migration, people prefer to be at the urban even if they don’t have a paid job but will be believing that opportunity will come they way one day and that opportunity in the urban is higher than that opportunity in the rural.
In Nigeria many people that are are been give birth to in the rural and were brought up in the rural area will prefer to stay at the urban than the rural area with the expectation that one day opportunity will come they way so even if they don’t have any paid job now they will prefer staying at the urban than staying at the rural area even if they are been paid at the rural area.

IDOKO PATIENCE UCHENNA
ECONOMICS EDUCATION
REG. NO 2017/241111

Poor people are assume to have more children than the rich. The main reasons for that behavior of poor people having more kids than they can afford are as follow;

1.LACK OF EDUCATION: people don’t know the basics about sexual education. I used to work for a NGO that promotes the family planification and sexual health into the community and everytime we did campaigns, people used to ask the same basic questions that someone with a basic understanding can find it laughable like:

If you have sex for first time, you don’t need protection because “it doesn’t count”.
You can use the same condom more than once, just wash it.
You’ll have extra protection if you use 2 condoms at the same time.

2. MACHISMO (male chauvinism): the male partners have a lack of confidence and have this idea that if the wife start to take the pill or whatever method, it means they want to cheat the husband and hide the evidence. So unsafe sex is the best way for the husband to stay aware that she is only having sex with him.

3 . RELIGION: It looks like there’s some correlation between religion and education. When someone has less education, the traditional religion beliefs are higher. According to those beliefs, it is a sin that a couple use contraceptive methods because it qualifies as “abort”. The unique birth control accepted by the church is the “natural” one, this means have sex only the days where the woman is not ovulating (you must guess the cons about this).

4. KIDS AS AS ASSET: 60 years ago, the country had a majority rural population. People living in rural zones see the kids as an asset because they are free labor to cultivate the fields or do the duties at home (like prepare foods to sell at the market). In our history we had a massive migration from rural zones to the capital and other cities in the coast because the terrorist groups had in jeopardy the country, and the first victims were people living in rural zones.

Those people who migrated to the cities were farmers who doesn’t have skills for the urban world neither a place to live, so they became poor. That people brought that mindset of the kids as an asset. But since in the city you don’t have fields to cultivate, they just changed the duties of the kids, from helping with the crops to send them to the streets to beg, sell candies or other minor things. So in some way they still area source of income for those families.

In the other hand, people with money tend to have less children or delay when to have them because they get education and start to notice that first they need to achieve other goals (Maslow Hierarchy), like get a master degree, travel to other countries, get a car, get a nice department, get a well paid job, join to a club, enjoy the freedom of singleness, etc. This is far from what a poor people is looking for (have food for today and a place where to sleep).

The government through different periods and presidents have been working on this topic, but their efforts aim just to educate about what are the different contraceptive methods and make them so available as it’s possible (you can get free condoms if you go to a health center in the poor zones of the country). The other points are hard to fight because it’s a matter of mindset, specially the third one (religion) because the Catholic Church have a powerful lobby and the evangelicalism have a powerful reach between poor people (they are taking followers from the catholics).

Having said it above that poor people believed that giving birth to many children help they(parents) in doing some of the house chores, another important point is ignorant. Since poor parents are not educated, they lack the knowledge of knowing that is very important to train every child they give birth to so that the child will be more useful to them, community and society at large. Also some of the poor parents are of the opinion that since is said in the holy Bible that we should go forth to the world and multiple, they now sees it as a blessing that when one gives birth to many children, that really the blessings of God is with them. Another one is that especially Igbo people, they believed that if one gives birth to many children that even if death occurs in such family being it that they have numerous children it won’t affect the family too much since they are many. All these are the reasons why poor parents or people give too much birth than the rich who are educated and know the importance of training a child in a society