Borrowing against the Future: Children and Third World Indebtedness

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Abstract
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.

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