Why the Poor Have Many Children

Edita Tan and Katrina Dinglasan
Additional contact information
Edita Tan: University of the Philippines School of Economics

No 201217, UP School of Economics Discussion Papers from University of the Philippines School of Economics

Abstract: This is a follow up note on the UP School of Economics Faculty paper on the population issue. The poor who belong to the lowest two deciles of the income distribution have much higher actual and desired number of children, respectively 5.2 and 3.5. In contrast, the upper middle and higher income groups have less than 3 children which equal their desired number. It is argued that the poor who suffer serious deprivation in basic needs and see little opportunity for their children’s education and other 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 as measured by average income to poverty ratio and food consumption to subsistence ratio marginally improve as the number of children falls. It is suggested that for a family planning program to succeed, it must be part of an anti poverty strategy.

Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2012-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-dev
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published as UPSE Discussion Paper No. 2012-17, November 2012

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.econ.upd.edu.ph/dp/index.php/dp/article/view/700 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:phs:dpaper:201217

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in UP School of Economics Discussion Papers from University of the Philippines School of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by RT Campos ().