| Looking for a second baby |
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| Escrito por Dixie Edith | |||||||||
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The local fertility rate is being negatively affected by family decisions to have only one child. This is one of the findings in a survey that involved 50 couples. "I am a working woman and have a daughter and a sick grandmother to take care of. How can I possibly think of having a second child?, wondered Daymarelis Falcón, a 27-year-old lawyer in the capital city. Survey respondents were aged 20 to 45 and had been living together for over two years in Havana, Villa Clara and Holguín provinces. The first two provinces exhibit the lowest birth rates and the third one, the highest in the country. Half of these couples had at least a boy or a girl already; ten were expecting their first baby; and the other 15 were not planning to have any. Only six couples said they were looking forward to having a second baby. A total of 22 men, however, confessed they would love to have more children. Eight of them recognized that child rearing is basically a task for mothers. Mario A. Ramírez, a 34-year-old mechanic in Villa Clara, is saddened to death when he hears his wife say they will have no more children. "I should never forget she was over 24 hours in labor before our son Alberto was born," he told SEMlac. "I had to wash diapers every morning, shortly after breastfeeding the baby two or three times," said his wife Dania Ramos. SEMlac survey findings are in line with those of a similar research conducted by the National Office of Statistics' Population and Development Study Center. This research work revealed that 64 percent of local men want to have more children. Reasons SEMlac corroborated that shrinking family size is associated with housing shortages, women's incorporation into the labor market, little or no father support in child rearing and education, and no household support infrastructure in place, including laundries and day-care centers. "My daughter has her own bedroom and we do our best to make her happy. This will not be possible if we have more children," Falcón commented. Cuba had exhibited a low birth rate as far back as 1899, when a population census was conducted under U.S. occupation. The rate had dropped from 12 percent in 1896 to six percent in 1899, it showed. The University of Havana's Population Study Center has associated this decline with the War of Independence that was waged in the period, which generated family instability and poor living conditions. In his book A demographic revolution in Cuba, university professor Raúl Hernández indicated that life expectancy had reached only 41 years in 1930 while the replacement rate (number of girls born from breeding-age women) merely stood at 2.2. He recalled that the former exceeded 72 years and the latter fell to one daughter per woman in 1975. Researcher María E. Benítez stressed that the local fertility rate has been steadily dropping because of full gender equality, free and massive access to education and healthcare, and employment opportunities. Aging Eleven couples in the (SEMlac) survey said they do not plan to have more children because they have to look after older, often sick relatives. They failed to identify alternative ways to take care of them while living normal lives. It is a fact that the aging process becomes both cause and effect at this juncture.
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