Borrowing against the Future: Children and Third World Indebtedness

One of the most important sociological issues today revolves around the global debt crisis. In response to this problem, the international financial community has pressured Third World countries to implement austerity policies (“structural adjustments”) designed to facilitate debt repayment. These p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social forces 1993-03, Vol.71 (3), p.629-656
Main Authors: Bradshaw, York W., Noonan, Rita, Gash, Laura, Sershen, Claudia Buchmann
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Borrowing
Child development
Child growth
Child Health
Child nutrition
Children
Debt
Debts
Developing Countries
Developing Nations
Economic aspects
Economic Crises
Economic Factors
Economic Problems
External debt
External debts
Factors
Foreign investments
Future
Growth
Immunization
Immunization Programs
International Debt
Mortality
Mortality Rate
National debt
Nutrition
Over urbanization
Poverty
Pressure dependence
Quality of Life
Retrenchment
Social aspects
Structural adjustment
Third World
UNICEF
Urbanization
Well Being
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Summary:One of the most important sociological issues today revolves around the global debt crisis. In response to this problem, the international financial community has pressured Third World countries to implement austerity policies (“structural adjustments”) designed to facilitate debt repayment. These policies have created profound hardship in many poor countries, especially among relatively vulnerable subpopulations such as children. In this article, we provide the first quantitative cross-national assessment of the impact of the global debt crisis on children. The data analysis shows that externally imposed austerity measures have directly or indirectly impeded child survival, childhood immunization, economic growth, prevalence of health attendants, adequate nutrition, and balanced urbanization. We provide a theoretical model that refocuses economic dependency and other development arguments to account more fully for children's development.
ISSN:0037-7732
1534-7605
DOI:10.1093/sf/71.3.629