Preventing Poor Children Becoming Poor Adults - Research Paper Example

Introduction Over the years, the world’s population has been increasing at an increasing rate. This has led to conflicting ideas on the best number of children a couple should have. The increment of population has led to more poverty (Overall, 69). The US government since the 1960s has tried to ensure that the high rate of poverty within her citizens is reduced. The government thus introduced funding programs for low-income earners and the unemployed. This move led to people who are below poverty level to increase their reproduction since the government was helping them to meet their basic needs (Demographic Research, 2008, vol. 17). The government thus had to find a way to reduce population growth since the increasing dependent group was growing randomly. In the late 1960s, the government introduced the use of contraceptives even by the unemployed category of women. These contraceptives were offered at cheap prices to increase their use and thus curb the uncontrolled population growth that resulted to more poverty. The introduction of contraceptives helped reduce the population growth but the government was in full control of the population growth. The issue of the increase of low-income earners is becoming a burden to the taxpayers due to the increased overdependence on the government aiding programs. Putting this in mind, this project is aimed at discussing if the US government should discourage couples from having more than two children (Demographic Research, 2008, vol. 17). The issue of a couple on to have at most two children has raised a big debate that many researchers have surveyed in an effort of coming up with the benefits that small families have over big families and vice versa. The past researches will provide us with more knowledge and thus an informative literature review. The literature review will also provide this research on the reasons behind rapid population growth and will thus answer the issue at hand. In this research, we will use primary data to not the views of Americans and thus from the data will analyze it and discuss the findings. After discussion, the research will provide a conclusion. Lastly, in this research we will offer a recommendation. Literature Review Past researches have talked the issues of the need for family planning, causes of rapid population growth and the impacts of government making laws on the number of children by a couple. The three are the most related researches that will provide us with the information required to tackle the issue at hand. The past research on the use of family planning, has given a progressive increase of women embracing it. In 1960s, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) introduced contraceptives inform of a pill. Most low-income earners that consisted of the blacks since they had no income, as most of them were unemployed after the abolishment of slavery, did not embrace this introduction. The blacks were not knowledgeable enough to note the advantages the pill would bring, it resulted to the increment of early pregnancies, and many children were born out of wedlock between 1960 and mid-1990s. As the education system improves, the use of family is increasing and currently more than 99% women have relied on a form of family planning. Although majority of women have currently embraced the use of contraceptives, the population is still growing at a faster rate than expected by the government. There are still high rate of teenage pregnancies and single mothers by either divorce or having children out of wedlock. According to this research, the researchers have given the reasons behind the increase of unwanted pregnancies and single mothers due to the number of children a woman have. The issues raised by the research on family planning are supported by the past research on causes of rapid growth. When reviewing the two theories it is clear to note that social economic issue is the major contributor of the rapid growth of population. The theories indicate that people from lower social economic status have more children in comparison to the high-income earners. This is due to the fact that high-income earner tend to delay their first childbirth and space their children well (Field, 23). The poor on the other hand tend to drop out of school and have no motivation of pursuing any careers thus most of young women from poor backgrounds tend to get unwanted pregnancies since they are idle. The spacing of kids is not also planned and this leads to births of many children at a short time and this results to financial constrains within the poor couples (Mirza, 234) Past research proves that low-income earning couples tend to divorce after the third child. The men tend to become depressed due to the increased responsibilities that are hand to financially support with his low incomes. The many births tend to make the women weak due to poor spacing of the births and poor diets. The theories tend to enlighten us that most couples are excited to have the first child since it is a change of life. Most of the excited couples are the couples that are financially stable and had planned to have a child but if the child was from unwanted pregnancy this will bring fiction within the couple. The second child is invited in the family but not in a similar hype as the first. Thus, the two theories indicate that the couple should have two children at most to ensure good care for the kids and ample time to flourish their relationship (Field, 36). The two theories have been criticized by some of the people who base their arguments on the impacts of governments setting laws on the number of children a couple should have. They state that a couple should have children according to their ability to raise them. This is because the one child policy in China in 1970s has caused more harm and imbalance within the current population. The population is composed of 60 million more men due to the Chinese culture that values male children than female. Since a couple is obliged to have only a single child abortion of female fetuses. The policy has also failed to anticipate the problem of having an imbalanced population that in future there will be more dependent population than the working population. This will affect the economy negatively and China will adopt pro-natalist policy, which is often adopted by countries that try to balance an ageing population. Collection of data The above theories make our research more interesting in trying to give the decision on the issue at hand. The research required raw data from the citizens on whether they think that the government should encourage couples to have only two kids. We carried out a questionnaire on Facebook and the questions asked were: What number of children should a couple have? What are reasons for your answer in the first question? Do you think that the government should encourage couples to have a maximum of two children? What are the reasons behind your thought on the government encouraging a maximum of two children? The questionnaire took one week and 10,000 people took part in it voluntarily. Sixty percent of the people who took part in the questionnaire were female and the rest were male. Age and location of interviewees was not included and the answers given were as follows: Thirty percent of men stated that a couple should have as many children as they are able to comfortably provide for and forty percent of women supported them stating that since people have different needs and incomes, couples should decide the number of kids to have. Seven percent of men gave two as the best number of kids to have while the other three percent gave 3 as the number of children a couple should have. These bunch of men stated that two or three children for a couple would be comfortable for most of the citizens. Women supported the view of men and nineteen percent gave two as the ideal number of kids for a couple and only one percent stating that the best number of children for a couple is three. Thirty percent of women and twenty percent of men supported that the government should encourage couple to have a maximum of two children. They argued that it is government’s responsibility to control population growth. Half of the women claimed that it is not right for the government to issue such encouragement since one should have children according to his ability to provide for them. Fifteen percent of men claimed that the government should not issue such encouragement since people have different wants and beliefs. Analysis of the data From the data above it is clear to note that most people advocate for the couples to have children in accordance to their ability to provide for them. A maximum number of children is also supported by most people and thus increasing the votes for the government to make two children the maximum number of children for a couple. Most of the interviewees also accepted the fact that the government is responsible for the population growth rate and thus supports it. Discussion The sample of 10,000 people taking part in the voluntary exercise provides an idea of the citizens on the issue at hand. The sample though is not encouraging since the number involved is negligible considering the population of USA. From the analysis it clear to note that people’s decisions are mainly focused on economic stability of the couple. This is encouraging since if most people have similar thoughts the government will face an easier task in its war on poverty. According to the data collected, it is encouraging that most people will embrace a move by the government to encourage two children for a couple. Advantages of the government discouraging couple to have no more than two children The number of children a couple has determines the relationship in the long term. Past researches proves that an increase in the number of children means an increase in responsibility. The increment in responsibility increases financial burden and thus men tend to feel the burden and may walk away of the relationship. This increases the number of single mothers due to many children whereas in our research we have noted that most people feel that two children are comfortable to raise. Thus, the government advocating for two children at most will serve to reduce the increasing number of divorces. This will also reduce crime rate in the future, as statistics shows that children from single parenting are more likely to engage in crime than those from both parents (Field, 44). The government discouraging more than two children will increase the financial status of the low-income earners since they become poorer due to the increase of responsibility since they have many children. If low-income couples go by what the government is encouraging then they will have a better chance to save some of the income that they will use to ensure their kids acquire better education. This will enlighten and ensure their kids join colleges and concentrate more on their careers to ensure higher income in the future. This time is important since the kids are busy thus reducing chances of teenage unwanted pregnancies and thus delay time for the first kid that ensures the young people will have a better chance of marrying complementing partners that will ensure an economically stable future for them (Field, 45). The health status of women mostly black and Latin’s will improve drastically since by following the idea the government is advocating for will ensure they use family planning effectively. This move will reduce chances of unwanted pregnancies that lead to abortion and increases mortality rate of young mothers and children. It is evident that proper spacing of pregnancies results to giving birth of healthy children (Knox and Schacht, 135). When women stand by the government and discourage more than two children, their income level will increase. This is because the women will delay their first births and concentrate more in their careers. This increases their experience at work and since they are still single and young their chances of securing good jobs are higher than women who are single mothers or married mother at their age. The chances of making it in one’s career are higher thus future success (Field, 47). The move to discourage more than two children increases chances to better a woman’s career thus making it easier for women to acquire equal chances of employment opportunity with men. This move helps the government to ensure equality in the job market. Disadvantages of the government discouraging more than two children for a couple The move by the government to use such policies to curb population growth have been used in some countries for instance China but as it has proved success in the short term it provides greater problems in the long term. The policy of advocating at most two children may end up becoming similar to the one child policy in China thus cause population imbalances where the old and retired population will be more than the young generation making it difficult for them to replace the retiring population in the working class (Moffatt, 48). This will lead to higher dependency ratio in comparison to the productive population thus greater economic losses. Discouraging more than two children may also increase abortion cases since the citizens do not want to be fined for having more than two children. This puts women at a risk of maternity deaths (Knox and Schacht, 143). These disadvantages will eventually make the US government to adopt the pro-natalist policy as adopted by France to encourage working women to give birth. It was realized that women in France were concentrating more on their careers and abandoning their responsibilities of reproducing. The government of France has to pay the women to ensure they give birth for the sake of balancing the population. The US government should thus learn from these countries before making its decision of number of kids per couple. Conclusion This research provides the best arguments for and against the government discouraging more than two children by a couple. It easy to note that advantages overshadow the disadvantages but the disadvantages that the issue can bring tends to affect the economy directly and may lead to bankruptcy of the whole economy. This makes it difficult to choose sides but after the research, I would encourage the government to discourage more than two children by a couple. This is simply because although the move may affect the economy negatively in the long time it is better to take the best move now and then change it as time passes. Improved living standards brought about the government by the government discouraging couples from having more than two children will ensure a vast improvement in the living standards thus reduce crime (Every Child Matters, 2005). The reduction of crime now will ensure the youths become responsible which will ease crime even in the future. In conclusion, it is the government has responsibility to make the best decision to ensure a balanced population and ensure it wins war on poverty. By making the best decision the government will win the trust of its citizens thus incur less costs in the application of the two children policy. Recommendation This research has provided us with the opportunity understand the issue at hand but since there are areas where the research has failed to provide us with the necessary information to support its arguments. I would recommend that the questionnaire is carried out in different states and the answers given in such a survey will provide a better and broader idea on the citizens’ opinion on the issue of the government discouraging couples having more than two kids. The survey should also state the age groups of the interviewees; this will ensure better judgment of each group of people and will provide us with a concrete evidence if the move is acceptable or not. The US government should try to formulate a way to ensure that the economy future is safe. Failure to anticipate the dangers and formulate a way to mitigate the dangers is the main undoing of China thus; I recommend the US government to have ways that will mitigate the negative effects. The US government should also have another plan that it thinks will work if its plan to discourage more than two kids may fail or become very expensive to impose. Works Cited Demographic Research, Volume 17: Book Ii: Articles 19 to 30, Special Collection 6. Norderstedt: Books on Demand, 2008. Every Child Matters. London: The Stationery Office Ltd, 2005. Print. Field, Frank. The Foundation Years: Preventing Poor Children Becoming Poor Adults : the Report of the Independent Review on Poverty and Life Chances. London: Cabinet Office, 2010. Print. Knox, David and Caroline Schacht. Choices in Relationships: An Introduction to Marriage and the Family. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2013. Print. Mirza, Farooq. Keeping Children Healthy in Body and Mind. Edgewater, Fla: Denliners Publishers, 2001. Print. Moffatt, Gregory K. The Parenting Journey: From Conception Through the Teen Years. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2004. Print. Overall, Christine. Why Have Children: The Ethical Debate. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2012. Print. Read More