Are children hungry because they have siblings?
We & TheyÂ
The moment we see poverty in its various forms we are structured mentally to blame it to the increasing population. The analysis and interpretation of a fact which is so apparent, seems correct. With more children the per capita demand increases and so the allocation within a limited supply per capita decreases. “Less children leads to happier family life” is the slogan one has grown hearing since childhood.
However is population the real issue? Is population the real cause for global poverty? Are children hungry only because they have more siblings? Or there is something else behind such inhumane hunger deaths, malnourished sunken chicks. There is a need to understand the larger issues of resource accumulation, private property and consumption pattern.
Population needs to be understood in the manner of human load the earth is undergoing due to the consumption pattern. It is said that in developed countries like US the per capita consumption is almost 50 times that of people living in the poorest countries. So what one child in a rich family or country consumes (resources including food) might be more than what a family of 10 might be consuming in a poor family.
One of the reports states Inequalities in consumption are stark. Globally, the 20% of the world’s people in the highest-income countries account for 86% of total private consumption expenditures — the poorest 20% a minuscule 1.3%. More specifically, the richest fifth:
• Consume 45% of all meat and fish, the poorest fifth 5%
• Consume 58% of total energy, the poorest fifth less than 4%
• Have 74% of all telephone lines, the poorest fifth 1.5%
• Consume 84% of all paper, the poorest fifth 1.1%
• Own 87% of the world’s vehicle fleet, the poorest fifth less than 1%
The world’s priorities have changed. Sunscreen glasses not only stops strong sunrays from penetrating but even restrict deplorable human poverty from being visible. The greed for more than the human need has left the natural distributive system in disarray. The habit to hoard more than one requires in one’s lifetime has lead to misbalanced world economy and blame shifts to the poor for having large families. Carrying the same myopic view of the world and poor, our own Health Minister is engrossed to endorse condoms for population reduction for eliminating poverty. Hopefully someday he will be out of the cocoon to see and understand that the real reasons for poverty is not child birth but governance to which people like him are part.