Debate grows with Philippine population

[Heracles 417]

The dire poverty in the Philippines has little to do with people having too many babies, but a huge disparity between the haves and the have nots. I'm surprise that there isn't more social unrust, revolts in a country where the great majority of the people are dirt poor while a small percentage are wealthy.

I was waiting for that one. The rich guy is always to blame.

[BJZags 17]

The dire poverty in the Philippines has little to do with people having too many babies, but a huge disparity between the haves and the have nots.

I call BS on that statement. Poverty is directly a result of having too many babies. I too would be in poverty if I had 10 kids. It would doubly suck for me if that were the case, because living in America, none of my 10 kids would support me in my old age.

[mawilson 2,133]

The dire poverty in the Philippines has little to do with people having too many babies, but a huge disparity between the haves and the have nots.

I call BS on that statement. Poverty is directly a result of having too many babies. I too would be in poverty if I had 10 kids. It would doubly suck for me if that were the case, because living in America, none of my 10 kids would support me in my old age.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The dire poverty in the Philippines has little to do with people having too many babies, but a huge disparity between the haves and the have nots.

I call BS on that statement. Poverty is directly a result of having too many babies. I too would be in poverty if I had 10 kids. It would doubly suck for me if that were the case, because living in America, none of my 10 kids would support me in my old age.

That's the difference - America vs. Phillipines...and that wasn't so just over a half a century ago, before FDR and Social Security, Medicare. Grown children in most societies take on the financial burden of caring for their aging parents. Combine that with high infant mortality rates and you'll understand why many families in Third World countries have more children. To simply blame poverty on having babies is overly simplistic at best...particularly in a country where the majority of the population lives in poverty. How many older Filipinos do you know that live on retirement? Have medical insurance?

[mawilson 2,133]

How many older Filipinos do you know that live on retirement? Have medical insurance?

Probably more than you, considering the poster is from there.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

How many older Filipinos do you know that live on retirement? Have medical insurance?

Probably more than you, considering the poster is from there.

Brent isn't from the Philippines, sparky.

[mawilson 2,133]

How many older Filipinos do you know that live on retirement? Have medical insurance?

Probably more than you, considering the poster is from there.

Brent isn't from the Philippines, sparky.

Who's Brent?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

(from World Hunger: 12 Myths - by Frances Moore Lappé, Joseph Collins and Peter Rosset, with Luis Esparza)

As recently as two or three generations ago, mortality rates in the United States were as high as they are now in most third world countries. Opportunities for our grandmothers to work outside the home were limited. And ours was largely an agrarian society in which every family member was needed to work on the farm. Coauthor Frances Lappé's own grandmother, for example, gave birth to nine children, raised them alone on a small farm, and saw only six survive to adulthood. Her story would not be unusual in a still fast-growing third world country today.

Faced with scarcity, poor families needed many children to help with work on the farm, and because of high infant-mortality rates, they needed many more pregnancies and births to achieve the necessary family size.

In the United States, the move to two-children families took place only after a society-wide transition that lowered infant death rates, opened opportunities to women outside the home, and transformed ours into an industrial rather than agrarian economy, so that families no longer relied on their children's labor. If we contrast Lappé's grandmother's story to a latter-day urban middle-class family, we can see that children who were once a source of needed labor are now a source of major costs, including tuition, an extra room in the house, the latest model basketball shoes, and forgone earnings for every year that a professional mom stays home with the kids.

The United States advanced through the falling-birth-rate phase of the demographic transition in response to these societal changes, well before the advent of sophisticated contraceptive technologies, even while the government remained actively hostile to birth control. (As late as 1965, selling contraceptives was still illegal in some states.)22

Using our own country's experience to understand rapid population growth in the third world, where poverty is more extreme and widespread, we can now extend our hypothesis concerning the link between hunger and high fertility rates: both persist where societies deny security and opportunity to the majority of their citizens-where infant-mortality rates are high and adequate land, jobs, education, health care, and old-age security are beyond the reach of most people, and where there are few opportunities for women to work outside the home.

Without resources to secure their future, people can rely only on their own families. Thus, when poor parents have lots of children, they are making a rational calculus for survival. High birth rates reflect people's defensive reaction against enforced poverty. For those living at the margin of survival, children provide labor to augment meager family income. In Bangladesh, one study showed that even by the age of six a boy provides labor and/or income for the family. By the age of twelve, at the latest, he contributes more than he consumes.23

Population investigators tell us that the benefit children provide to their parents in most third world countries cannot be measured just by hours of labor or extra income. The intangibles are just as important. Bigger families carry more weight in community affairs. With no reliable channels for advancement in sight, parents may hope that the next child will be the one clever or lucky enough to get an education and land a city job despite the odds. In many countries, income from one such job in the city can support a whole family in the countryside.

http://www.globalissues.org/EnvIssues/Popu...dFirst/Past.asp

[peejay 327]

(from World Hunger: 12 Myths - by Frances Moore Lappé, Joseph Collins and Peter Rosset, with Luis Esparza)

As recently as two or three generations ago, mortality rates in the United States were as high as they are now in most third world countries. Opportunities for our grandmothers to work outside the home were limited. And ours was largely an agrarian society in which every family member was needed to work on the farm. Coauthor Frances Lappé's own grandmother, for example, gave birth to nine children, raised them alone on a small farm, and saw only six survive to adulthood. Her story would not be unusual in a still fast-growing third world country today.

Faced with scarcity, poor families needed many children to help with work on the farm, and because of high infant-mortality rates, they needed many more pregnancies and births to achieve the necessary family size.

In the United States, the move to two-children families took place only after a society-wide transition that lowered infant death rates, opened opportunities to women outside the home, and transformed ours into an industrial rather than agrarian economy, so that families no longer relied on their children's labor. If we contrast Lappé's grandmother's story to a latter-day urban middle-class family, we can see that children who were once a source of needed labor are now a source of major costs, including tuition, an extra room in the house, the latest model basketball shoes, and forgone earnings for every year that a professional mom stays home with the kids.

The United States advanced through the falling-birth-rate phase of the demographic transition in response to these societal changes, well before the advent of sophisticated contraceptive technologies, even while the government remained actively hostile to birth control. (As late as 1965, selling contraceptives was still illegal in some states.)22

Using our own country's experience to understand rapid population growth in the third world, where poverty is more extreme and widespread, we can now extend our hypothesis concerning the link between hunger and high fertility rates: both persist where societies deny security and opportunity to the majority of their citizens-where infant-mortality rates are high and adequate land, jobs, education, health care, and old-age security are beyond the reach of most people, and where there are few opportunities for women to work outside the home.

Without resources to secure their future, people can rely only on their own families. Thus, when poor parents have lots of children, they are making a rational calculus for survival. High birth rates reflect people's defensive reaction against enforced poverty. For those living at the margin of survival, children provide labor to augment meager family income. In Bangladesh, one study showed that even by the age of six a boy provides labor and/or income for the family. By the age of twelve, at the latest, he contributes more than he consumes.23

Population investigators tell us that the benefit children provide to their parents in most third world countries cannot be measured just by hours of labor or extra income. The intangibles are just as important. Bigger families carry more weight in community affairs. With no reliable channels for advancement in sight, parents may hope that the next child will be the one clever or lucky enough to get an education and land a city job despite the odds. In many countries, income from one such job in the city can support a whole family in the countryside.

http://www.globalissues.org/EnvIssues/Popu...dFirst/Past.asp

Sure, these articles are great to read. At the end of the day though...it's their life, their country, their culture, and their decision. They can have 12 kids apiece and quadruple their present population if that is what they want to do. Let the chips fall as they may when they breed what they can't feed. Nature has always trumped the folly of man.

What riles me is when these discussions turn into "what are we gonna do to save them." We being the good old USA. The USA is under no obligation save the world or to fix the world's myriad of problems. It's certainly not the obligation of the USA to employ everyone in the world or ensure that they have a right to immigrate here at will.

Unfortunately that is what a lot of these topics turn in to. The way I see it we can't even save ourselves, much less the world. Just because our plight is not as dire as theirs doesn't obligate us nor should it.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Sure, these articles are great to read. At the end of the day though...it's their life, their country, their culture, and their decision. They can have 12 kids apiece and quadruple their present population if that is what they want to do. Let the chips fall as they may when they breed what they can't feed. Nature has always trumped the folly of man.

What riles me is when these discussions turn into "what are we gonna do to save them." We being the good old USA. The USA is under no obligation save the world or to fix the world's myriad of problems. It's certainly not the obligation of the USA to employ everyone in the world or ensure that they have a right to immigrate here at will.

Unfortunately that is what a lot of these topics turn in to. The way I see it we can't even save ourselves, much less the world. Just because our plight is not as dire as theirs doesn't obligate us nor should it.

nm

Edited May 8, 2008 by Jabberwocky

[Heracles 417]

The dire poverty in the Philippines has little to do with people having too many babies, but a huge disparity between the haves and the have nots.

I call BS on that statement. Poverty is directly a result of having too many babies. I too would be in poverty if I had 10 kids. It would doubly suck for me if that were the case, because living in America, none of my 10 kids would support me in my old age.

That's the difference - America vs. Phillipines...and that wasn't so just over a half a century ago, before FDR and Social Security, Medicare. Grown children in most societies take on the financial burden of caring for their aging parents. Combine that with high infant mortality rates and you'll understand why many families in Third World countries have more children. To simply blame poverty on having babies is overly simplistic at best...particularly in a country where the majority of the population lives in poverty. How many older Filipinos do you know that live on retirement? Have medical insurance?

You are wrong. If you look at the countries with the highest living standards all of them have quite small populations.

[JVKn'CVO 11]

The dire poverty in the Philippines has little to do with people having too many babies, but a huge disparity between the haves and the have nots.

I call BS on that statement. Poverty is directly a result of having too many babies. I too would be in poverty if I had 10 kids. It would doubly suck for me if that were the case, because living in America, none of my 10 kids would support me in my old age.

egg...chicken...egg...chicken...

Saludos,

Caro

[mawilson 2,133]

Let the chips fall as they may when they breed what they can't feed. Nature has always trumped the folly of man.

Ain't that the truth.

What riles me is when these discussions turn into "what are we gonna do to save them." We being the good old USA. The USA is under no obligation save the world or to fix the world's myriad of problems. It's certainly not the obligation of the USA to employ everyone in the world or ensure that they have a right to immigrate here at will.

Or to ensure they have food for that matter.

[✿Ice Rain✿ 0]

You guys favorite to topic and discuss anything about Philippines? What a popular country ha? Guess what, 1/8 of the postings in this thread were true others were #######.

[sj5 4]

Doesn't the Philippines have a big problem with fatherless children too?

yes, but i rather them to have nothing than having bad father.

What I don't get is that they won't use a condom because the Church condemns it, but they'll have sex out of wedlock, which I have to believe the Church also condemns. Is the use of a condom a worse sin than premarital sex?

Church/Religion can't stop anyone to have sex "Desire & pleasure" (there are non-believers didn't have sex before marriage). i don't know if they condemn condoms .(its also sin to use condom when you're married?)

some of fatherless children has mother/father who is married to someone else already(i'm pretty sure isn't just my country has this problem)