Inter-generational contracts, demographic transitions and the ‘quantity–quality’ tradeoff: parents, children and investing in the future
✍ Scribed by Naila Kabeer
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 113 KB
- Volume
- 12
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0954-1748
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
This paper explores why so many children remain outside the schooling system\ despite the current emphasis on education as a form of human capital and as a basic human right[ The value given to investments in education partly depends on the extent to which such investments _t in with the implicit inter!generational contracts between parents and children\ particularly in societies where there are few alternatives to the family as sources of welfare and security in old age[ When the decision to educate a child remains private\ the interests of parents| security in old age will dominate over the long!term interests of the child[ To explore the circumstances under which parents would be persuaded to invest in their children|s education\ the paper suggests a series of stylized {transitions| in the inter!generational contract\ each associated with increasing willingness on the part of parents to invest resources in their children [ Copyright Þ 1999 John Wiley + Sons\ Ltd[
INTRODUCTION] THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF PARENTÐCHILD RELATIONSHIPS
The meaning of education in the international development agenda has changed considerably in recent decades from the earlier preoccupation with skilled manpower as a necessary adjunct to capital!intensive economic growth to the current conviction that education is a necessary precondition for the achievement of a range of economic goals\ for social development as well as for individual self!realization[ In the course of these changing ideas\ education has come to acquire the status of a basic human right[ Evidence of the new importance accorded to education can be found in the