UN: Sustainable Development and Family Planning Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Gardner of Parkes
Main Page: Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Gardner of Parkes's debates with the Department for International Development
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberThe noble Baroness is right. This is a circular issue: where girls have more access to education you see the birth rate coming down, and where the birth rate is coming down girls have more access to education. When families are able to choose, they tend to choose to have fewer children and to invest more in them, and that certainly includes education.
My Lords, is it not a fact that, in these countries where health standards are improving and children live longer, there is no longer any need to have a very large family because so many die very young? This comes back to the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar; that educating mothers, in particular, in health processes and in how to care for their children and for their health will have an effect.
My noble friend is right, and I emphasise again the importance of investing in education, which then has the effects that she is talking about. I note also what are described as the demographic dividends: if you have fewer children who are dependent and therefore an expansion of the working-age population, there is an economic benefit to the countries in question. That is regarded as one of the factors in the development of the east Asian countries in particular.