Fair Start Movement

Author: Fair Start Movement

  • Is Waiting to Have Your First Child a Bad Thing?

    Is Waiting to Have Your First Child a Bad Thing?

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    A recent study found that women in Portugal have their first child at the age of 30, and one quarter of them don’t expect to have more than one. Unsurprisingly, given those facts, Portugal has one of the world’s lowest fertility rates. For those economists who think it’s a good idea to keep fertility rates high to produce a cheaper labor force, this trend is worrisome. But what are some of the reasons women delay having their first child?

    Factors that lead to the postponement of having children include the extension of period of studies, delayed entry to the labour market, instability in relationships or the lack of one, delays in leaving the parental home, believing that having children is not essential for personal realisation and believing that it is preferable to have fewer children in order to give them better opportunities.

    Are any of these bad reasons? The desire to go to school, the disinclination to have a child in the middle of a bad relationship, wanting to give your child more… these seem sensible to us. What do you think?

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  • Skip the Toys and Plant Trees Instead

    Skip the Toys and Plant Trees Instead

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    To celebrate the birth of the first child of King Khesar and Queen Jetson, households in Bhutan planted trees. The move comes as part of a larger initiative in Bhutan, which has pledged to remain carbon neutral. It’s holding up its promise by becoming one of the few countries in the world to have negative carbon emissions.

    Having a child? Maybe skip some of the toys, clothes, and other things kids don’t need as much as a safe future in which he or she will thrive… and plant trees instead. The Having Kids model supports forward thinking like this.

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  • A Holistic Approach to Having Kids

    A Holistic Approach to Having Kids

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    In St. Louis, Missouri, pediatricians are taking a holistic approach to having kids. They’re starting to ask parents about their financial situation and whether they live in poverty. If parents do live in poverty, they’re provided with services that increase the child’s quality of life today while saving money on health costs in the future. Doctors are trying to be proactive to help improve everyone’s quality of life.

    Collectively, we need to come together to provide resources to those who don’t have them so that we can improve the quality of life of individuals and the communities that we live in. Having Kids provides families with sex education and family planning, encouraging everyone to have smaller families so we can dedicate more resources to each child. By providing resources to families to support family planning decisions and their children, we can raise the bar for all.

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  • New York Leads the Way on Paid Leave

    New York Leads the Way on Paid Leave

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    New York is leading the nation in many ways when it comes to providing families with methods to help support future children and families. Recently, the state announced its #LeadOnLeave initiative, which will give both men and women three months of paid leave. The program is funded by employees, for employees so that the cost will not fall on the employer. This will give new parents the opportunity to be with their child for the first three months, while the current standard is 0 weeks paid leave.

    According to CNN, “The majority of the research surrounding paid leave shows definite benefits to the baby, mother and family, including a decline in infant and maternal mortality, an increase in breast-feeding rates and more involvement by fathers in their children’s lives and in child care activities.” #LeadOnLeave will provide more resources to each child so they can live a higher quality of life overall.

    The state has also been at the forefront of combating the Zika Virus to limit potential cases of microcephaly. New York has been providing free testing to individuals who have traveled to countries where the disease is prevalent. By being proactive, the state is ensuring that families can respond to this outbreak effectively and that they can plan when to have children so those future children won’t be affected by the virus.

    Because New Yorkers are working together to create resources for families, New York is providing conditions for a high quality of life for the children of the future. New York is thinking critically about having kids and about the future it wants to create for those children. Other communities and states should #LeadOnLeave and provide resources to families for testing for diseases like Zika.

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  • Family Planning in Indonesia: A Model for the World

    Family Planning in Indonesia: A Model for the World

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    Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) announced that he will revive Indonesia’s family planning program, which previous presidents have not prioritized. President Jokowi sees this as a strategic investment that will:

    • Help families save more overall
    • Provide parents access to higher incomes
    • Reduce maternal and child mortality
    • Reduce poverty
    • Provide more opportunities, such as education and employment, for the children who are born under these policies

    Having Kids believes that policies like these should be implemented around the world. In doing so, we could ensure that children being born into this world are given a high quality of life and are born into conditions in which they can thrive. If families cannot plan when they have kids, society and families alike to often find it challenging to devote the amount of resources necessary to each child to ensure their success. Addressing these issues now can provide a sound future for children who have not yet been born. The Having Kids model can ensure this sound future by helping families invest more resources in each child.

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  • How Can We Follow in Iran’s Footsteps?

    How Can We Follow in Iran’s Footsteps?

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    How do you bring a country’s total fertility rate from 6 to 2.1 children in 20 years? Iran had the answer, and it included education, free contraception, and accessible healthcare clinics for rural and urban areas. In 1970, Iran launched a family planning initiative that had three goals:

    1. Delay a family’s first pregnancy.
    2. Allow more space between births.
    3. Promote smaller families.

    Using these tactics, Iran knew could it reduce maternal and child mortality and ensure that families planned for children that they could support. Overall, the program was incredibly successful because sex education was provided broadly to youth, a variety of contraceptives were offered for free, health clinics were established, and there was a cultural shift to accept these family planning tools. In the end, families could plan for the children they wanted to have, and they could ensure that they would have the resources to support those children fully.

    However, a few years ago Iran cut their family program, outlawed vasectomies, and created public ad campaigns encouraging couples to have large families. Many groups and individuals are concerned that this will result in a significant increase in unplanned pregnancies, an increase in sexually transmitted infections, a decrease in girls and women pursuing higher education, and fewer families having the means to fully support their offspring. Having Kids believes that this is a turn in the wrong direction and will make it harder for families and the country to support the children who will be born under this policy.

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  • The Benefits of Small Families

    The Benefits of Small Families

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    A recent article detailed many obvious and irrefutable benefits to having fewer kids: parents who are able to spend more time with each child, less competition for resources among children, more free time for parents, savings of close to a quarter of a million dollars per child (the average cost of raising a child in the United States), and children who are statistically likely to become more independent. Curiously, though, the article concludes like this: “Remember, the argument about one child vs. many children all boils down to personal priorities and preferences.”

    But is that true? Shouldn’t it matter to all of us whether the world is overcrowded, whether the environment is degraded, and whether parents are investing enough in each child to help them lead good lives and get along with others? At Having Kids, we believe that parenting decisions are more than personal and that we can work together to create a better world.

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  • Australia’s “Close the Gap” Program Can Do Better

    Australia’s “Close the Gap” Program Can Do Better

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    There is a massive gap between indigenous and non-indigenous communities in Australia when it comes to things like healthcare, education, and employment. (These graphics from The Economist demonstrate the disparity visually.) And despite years of policies designed to close the gap, a recent study shows there has been little progress. Why not?

    Gap-closing initiatives often ignore the disproportionate influence that early childhood has on quality of health, well-being, learning, and behavior across a child’s life. The Having Kids model increases the focus on early childhood by redirecting the resources being used to create larger families towards improving the birth conditions of each child. By working together, we can close the gap for good.

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  • Can Sub-Replacement Fertility Work? Just Ask Japan.

    Can Sub-Replacement Fertility Work? Just Ask Japan.

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    Japan now has a “birthrate czar,” Katsunobu Kato, who is tasked with urging women to become pregnant to stabilize Japan’s population at about 100 million as it falls from a current ~125 million. In 2015, Kato oversaw about 32 billion dollars of public funding to stabilize the birthrate at a sub-replacement level of 1.8 children per woman, using a variety of interventions. According to Kato, the government envisions a less populous Japan, but one where “all Japanese people and people of all ages and sexes–including those who have failed… can dream and hope to create a society heading forward.”

    Some are asking why Japan is investing so much in creating additional people rather than investing in the children and adults that are there now. When pressed, Kato cited economic growth rates as the reason for massive investment. But are there values other than economic growth rates that should also be considered? What about restoring the nonhuman world, investing more individualized attention in each child, and creating communities small enough and with enough in common for people to feel connected to one another? That sounds good to us.

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