Planning the Family in Egypt - Book Report/Review Example

The structure of societies is fast changing with most societies adopting an individual structure, as is the case with the Western world. This implies that unlike in the traditional African societies where children were communally owned and thus taken care of by all the members of the society; the current social structure leaves all the burden of raising a family to the particular families.

The paradigm shift is inevitable thereby compelling families to raise sizable families that they can raise comfortably. Such features, therefore, validate the use of different family planning methods in order to help curb the myriad disadvantages of overpopulation in the continent. The author takes his study to the African continent, one of the most impoverished continents in the world. It thus becomes pretentious for the author to foster his arguments while the evidence of backward lifestyles and overpopulation are evident in the societies.

Overpopulation causes strain both in families and in societies. When parents cannot care for their families, they cause their children pain and misery by compelling them to live substandard lifestyles since they many children and large families pile pressure on the meager family resources. With effective family planning mechanisms, adults have reliable ways of planning their family sizes thereby conceiving only when they are ready. Such mechanisms therefore strive to create lean families often giving adults the chance to raise sizable families.

To counter one of the author’s major arguments, governments often do not guide the populace on the number of children to have. The adults have the freedom to have as many children as they can provided they could take good care of the families without facing the myriad social and economic challenges associated with large families. The rise of the many family planning service providers is not a portrayal of the rise of capitalism in post-colonial Africa but a manifestation of developing economies.

Most African countries have free market economies that permit the participation of several businesses. The competition among the business thus serves as the major regulation thus cushioning the consumers from exploitative businesspeople. This implies that the numerous family planning service providers contribute to developing African economies by creating more employment opportunities for the citizens in the countries. In retrospect, the use of family planning techniques in contemporary African societies is inevitable.

The strategies provide realistic solutions to the major social and economic problems that people face in such countries most of which arise from overpopulation. With effective family planning, the lives of the people would improve owing to the fact that such would relieve some of the common amenities such as schools and hospitals that are currently under intense pressure.