🚀 go-pugleaf

In alt.folklore.science, dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes:

> jfe7w@fulton.seas.Virginia.EDU (John Fletcher Elder):
> >In poor countries with subsistence farming and low industry, children
> >are early on a net asset, able to help in the fields and home.
> 
> I've seen this statement literally dozens of times.  Alt.folklore.science
> is as good a place for it as any.  Beyond "everybody knows", is there any
> evidence for it?  If arable land is in short supply and labor is not,
> then it would be at least as plausible to argue that children are *not*
> a net asset early on.

Actually a slightly altered version is true:  In lands where agricultural land
is commonly owned, more children will mean more food when they get old enough
to work the land.  Where land is privately owned, more children will not mean a
bigger harvest.  Scientific American had a paper on this a couple of years
back, looking at population controls and countries where they were complete
failures.  I do not have any information on non-agriculturally based societies.

> Dani Zweig
> dani@netcom.com
> 
>    God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endless traine  -- Edmund Spenser

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Rauchfuss (Smokefoot)  "... the world could change in the blink
brian@hpfcbdr.fc.hp.com           of an eye."