The value of children in rural Zambia is increasingly seen in terms of an economic and social resource with a price tag. Environmental hazards and the resulting social changes add to poverty and uncertainty. The changes are forcing families to reconsider their attitudes towards the earning abilities of their offspring and the contribution they make towards a household's income. Research from Coventry University focused on the Eastern Province where women bear an average seven children. The study explored the links between uncertainty, the increasing value of children, and the effects this has on human fertility.

Shock and uncertainty such as drought and AIDS have had fundamental impacts on rural African communities. Poverty is growing, social and economic infrastructures are deteriorating, as is the environment. Children's work potential, exploited from as early as six, is becoming increasingly essential to a family's survival. Using child-to-child interviews, mapping, and discussion groups, information was collected from parents, children, teachers, and health and environmental workers.

Farming technology is limited: all farming tasks depend heavily on human labour. Following a drought, labour supplies are crucial as farmers strive to ensure food security by planting as much as possible. Cotton - more tolerant of dry conditions - is an increasingly popular cash crop. Yet only families with access to cheap labour, such as children, can afford to grow such a labour-intensive crop. Children begin working in the fields from the age of eight. The youngest consume more food than they produce but become 'producers' at about twelve years old.

Research findings include indications that:

• The value of children to rural households is intensified in periods of environmental and social change, with children's labour increasingly a cash-based asset.
• Family structures and individual family roles are being re-defined as a result of environmental and social change with children and adolescents suffering the most.
• It is increasingly socially acceptable for young women to have children out of wedlock as a means of securing extra labour for her family.
• Children are now viewed as economic assets to be negotiated, for example between divorced parents. Such children used to return with the mother to her family.
• Knowledge of AIDS is universal but largely denied, implying a lack of understanding of the real risks. There appears to be no conscious impact on decisions concerning human fertility.
• Most orphans live with elderly (often female) relatives and are an important source of labour. Yet they add to the strain of poverty and are less likely to attend school.

Implications for policy include:

• The limited desire for family planning. Children are highly valued for their labour and social support during periods of chronic poverty.
• Sex education. Young people can be sexually aware from an early age and thus need to be targeted.
• AIDS/HIV awareness. The severity of the epidemic has not been properly understood. Adolescents, the highest-risk group, should be targeted for health education both within schools and in the wider community.
• The cultural abhorrence of condom use undermines most conventional anti-AIDS intitiatives.
• Educational delivery. During periods of environmental and social uncertainty children are withdrawn from school.
• Environmental education is essential in this drought-prone area and needs to be community based with a firm understanding of children's roles.

Source(s):
Environmental and Social Change in Zambia: The Value of Children to Rural Households Global Environmental Change Programme Briefing 22, 1998. Full document.
Social and Environmental Disturbance: Impacts on Fertility and Poverty in Zambia African Studies Centre, Coventry University, Occasional Paper 9, 1999.
Moral Boundaries: The Geography of Health Education in the Context of the HIV/AIDS Pandemic in Southern Africa Geography, Volume 85 - forthcoming 2000.

Funded by: GEC, ESRC

id21 Research Highlight: 23 September 1999

Further Information:
Hazel Barrett or Angela Browne
Geography Subject Group
School of Natural and Environmental Sciences
Coventry University
Priory Street
Coventry
CV1 5FB
UK

Tel: +44 (0)2476 888444
Fax: +44 (0)2476 888447
Contact the contributor: gex037@coventry.ac.uk

Coventry University

Other related links:
Global Environmental Change Programme, ESRC

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