This is a well-known correlation, but not necessarily a causal
connection; demographers tend to use statistics as the basis for
reasoning, instead of the other way round.
In a rural setting, children are not much of a handicap to one's
personal and economic progress; in the urban environment, they are,
as parents have to work far from home, children in the city need more
supervision and protection; education in the city is different from
just helping parents in their work - which turns a child's education
process from an increasing assistance to parents to an increasing
burden, free natural playgrounds are replaced by little constructed
ones that come at a cost, etc., etc.
Such factors determine people's decisions regarding the optimal
number of children - but they are all reflections of the structure
of the economic life of a family, rather than appear as direct
consequences of its productivity.
If you return parents into their homes - and closer to nature -
with telecommuting, allow children to attend virtual schools or just
download knowledge into their heads, use intelligent machine to
increase safety, and make a few more structural adjustments, then
the most advanced - including economically - households may find it
much easier to have more children, and the correlation between
family prosperity and size may change.
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Alexander Chislenko <sasha1@netcom.com> www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html
Firefly Network, Inc.: <alexc@firefly.net> www.ffly.com 617-234-5452
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