I can go on giving tons of possible reasons why a society should do everything it can to take care of its young children. You know, things like nutrition, good education, and freedom from having to work to earn a living. And the mother's welfare too, during the first few months of the child's life.
I will still not have made as strong a case for welfare measures as Annie has done in just one post. No excerpts will do it justice; so just hop over there and read her post in full.
* * *
A few days ago, I commented on Tim Harford's article on how businesses will love it if women were to delay pregnancy and child-birth to, um, after their retirement. Vivek too commented on that article. One of Annie's recent posts is also on a similar topic: economics of motherhood.
4 Comments:
'I can go on giving tons of possible reasons why a society should do everything it can to take care of its young children..'
but you'd rather support the nrega?
Hi Kuffir, I would support NREGA *and* child welfare programs. (I know you don't like NREGA because of the way it operates in AP.)
no, abi..i don't think we have that kind of a choice. when this govt started out it promised to raise spending on education to 6% of gdp and to bring in measures to alleviate the conditions of the aam aadmi. the form the latter propsal has taken, the nrega, essentially rules out any promised increase in spending on education. so what we have now is an attempt to lower poverty (through discredited mechanisms)with no attempt to address the causes of poverty like illiteracy. the grown- ups have stolen the candy from the kids!
and the nrega is not working anywhere - 25% of the jobcards, nationally, were issued in andhra. it's a more than representative sample to judge..what's happening on a national scale.
you might also wish to look at these reports on the 'progress' of the nrega elsewhere in the country:
http://in.news.yahoo.com/061103/48/691r1.html
http://nregs.blogspot.com/2006/10/shame-in-karnataka.html
Post a Comment