Comments

Hi Daniel. Thanks your interesting insights into developments at Burns Creek in SI. That's good news if it holds. PNG may be different - from first-hand experience visiting settlements in Port Moresby from the 1970s until 2016, I believe the situation is dire - not only the issue of 'raskol' gangs, but more broadly, incorporating health and other issues - one of the impediments to good anaylsis is the lack of statistics on just about everything to do with settlements. The ongoing rapid growth of settlements in Port Moresby will ensure that addressing the issues they generate will take time and considerable effort - and effective coordination of those efforts will be important. Regards

Thanks for the comments, Ashlee. I agree with the following: 1. There should be more women in economics: Enough said. 2. Issues beyond economics - women’s rights, health, infertility, and others - play an important role in fertility: I tried to acknowledge this a bit in the ninth paragraph: “…biological, social, religious, or a result of poor access to contraceptives.” I disagree, however, with the following: 1. Looking at economic factors alone isn’t useful: You don’t say this explicitly so apologies if I am mischaracterizing, but anthropological research - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130430161940.htm - has shown that out of sixty-four factors considered relating to family size, the economic ones were most important. This is somewhat vindicated by survey data that says families would have more children if they could afford it. In light of this, it seems economic forces are, if anything, underrated in understanding fertility. 2. Economists conflate demand with supply: Economists also model fertility using childrearing production functions. It doesn’t seem like one approach is necessarily favored over the other - both approaches are well-represented and are useful. But you actually kind of make the case for considering the strengths of using a demand approach when you point out how specialization and economies of scale don’t really make sense with fertility. On your last point, I am definitely not trying to rationalize the decisions of Octomom. That doesn’t mean that economics still can’t rationalize - with some degree of accuracy - fertility choice for most people. That also doesn’t mean that there isn’t a place for discussion about the inequalities and differences existing within fertility choice. As with any aggregate analysis, there is more going on underneath that can be unpacked. But that’s just not what this specific post is about. I’m curious though, if you were to only consider economic factors, would you think children are normal or inferior goods? Interested to hear your thoughts. PS - babies are sometimes cute…

Mobile Phone use in remote Janta Village in West Bengal in India is pretty much similar to Remote Villages in Papua New Guinea. Social change in remote communities and Villages here in Papua New Guinea are much similar. The great barrier is the Cost of Phones and cost of buying flex for voice call and data usage for internet in remote Villages.

Hi Louise, thanks for your comment. The effectiveness of the sporting/alcohol connection came as a bit of a surprise to me. Like you, I have heard it over-and-over in a number of communities over the years. Of course, it's only a temporary relief, but the fact that it works at all is, and is largely self-enforced, is interesting, and worthy of further attention. I'll email you the draft chapter.

Also, in terms of an economic good, normally you achieve efficiencies in production through 'specialisation' — there's very few avenues for this for women in reproduction. Outsourcing pregnancy to a surrogate (huge amount of ethical issues) would be the main one, again usually only accessible to those with high income (Kim Kardashian has done this, for example, due to suffering placenta accretia — most women with this condition would either have to stop having children or gamble on extremely high risk pregnancies). 'Economies of scale' also has its limits in this form of production... Octomum has incurred some pretty significant additional costs, for example. I don't think you can really rationalise this one!

Thanks for the post Dan. Super interesting. And resonates with my own (limited) experience in other communities in Sols - particularly around "what works" with youth engagement. I have heard many stories over the years of the positive impact of alcohol free sporting events with sanctions for breaking the prohibition - particularly where the sanctions are enforced by peers and / or respected local "elders". Unsurprisingly, I am also really interested to read more of your research regarding interventions from outsiders...appreciate if you could keep me posted about that book chapter?

While I understand that economists like to pontificate on this stuff and there is some value to it, sometimes it kills me and makes me think there should be more women in economics! While yes there are huge work-related 'costs' in having children, more heavily borne by women, there are also quality of life costs. There's the costs of pushing a bowling ball out of your body which are solely borne by women. There is a risk of permanent or temporary disability from the act of childbirth. Also, I am told that it hurts a lot to give birth and it is uncomfortable to be heavily pregnant! For women who breastfeed, this is another time cost borne solely by the woman — a form of economic production really that is completely ignored. I also feel that economists also conflate demand and supply of children — the fertility rate measures births, ie supply, not actual 'demand' for children, marginalising people who perhaps have experienced infertility/pregnancy loss, or who feel they can't afford to have children/as many children as they would like. There's also other groups for which the economic costs of falling pregnant are substantially higher — it's very expensive for lesbian couples or single women to go through the IVF process, for example, or for couples experiencing infertility. These opportunities are only available when income increases. There's also the issue of the undervaluing of women's domestic labour, and the 'second shift' issue for working women. An increase in income may mean the ability to outsource some of this labour, which makes balancing work/home easier, for example. But in a developing country, where women's labour is informal, this 'cost' often seems overlooked. One clear trend is that when given a choice, women choose to have fewer children. Not just because of job satisfaction/career, but because of bodily autonomy and a whole host of other reasons — in the US, the crushing burden of educational debt is being cited as one reason that Millennial women are putting off childbirth, as one example. It's complicated! In developing countries women often don't have access to the same choices due to gender inequality. So I don't think you can de-couple a discussion about income and reproduction from women's rights, and their place in an economy. I understand there are some clear differences between the developing/developed country fertility rates etc, and there is a fascination in considering why and what the economic trend is etc, but kids sometimes seem the most irrational consumer decision of all! Especially for women who bear the biggest costs by far. (They are so cute though...)

Clearly the Sydney Morning Herald journalist read the wrong version of A Clockwork Orange! The UK version’s 21st chapter (only 20 chapters in US version) is critical. Yes, very interested in the book chapter, can you email it? I’m working with Sinclair Dinnen on a project on security assemblages in PNG...hope to get to the field later this year...

Thanks Grant, funnily enough, that SMH article I reference in the blog incorporates commentary on ACO which I include in my thesis. Maybe I should expand! Great question concerning RAMSI and donors/NGOs. To keep you on tenterhooks, the approach of international NGOs in Burns Creek - and how they contribute to change, both positive and negative - is soon to be broached in a book chapter. The short answer is that outsiders have a role to play, but (as has been said a squillion times) context is key. Their interventions are welcomed by communities, but can play out in unexpected ways, becoming causes of divisiveness, competition and, at times, violence. I think that very cautious support backed by evidence is required ... and an appetite for failure. Happy to share the draft chapter if you are interested Grant.

Great insights Dan. I wonder how much this change had to RAMSI and/or other donors/NGOs, or is it all community driven? If the latter is the key message that donors and others should get out of the way when it comes to security? Or should they cautiously support sporting programs that stress players not drink, etc? On another note, the mellowing of Raskols due to marriage and kids reminds me of the fate of the main protagonist, Alex, in A Clockwork Orange (the first book version published in the UK, the second US version and film omits the final chapter on his love-inspired mellowing). So, a request: can you reference ACO in the thesis - at least once?

Really good article that got my thought juices flowing, and is very applicable to environmental management processes in one supposedly developed country - Australia - where the tussle between 'the intensely local nature of problem solving with the ever-present desire for impact at larger scales' has ended up in a decade or more of shadow boxing between whats funded by government as 'Natural Resource Management' and the more community based landcare movement. So your article then asks "What, then, is actually scalable? Is it the specific policy solution or change in practice developed in a given district that should be replicated in other contexts, or rather the process of facilitated problem solving? If it is the former, does abstracting the outcome from the navigation of the political process simply result in transplanting technocratic solutions (even within country borders) that will lead to implementation failures and the creation of institutional forms without function?" Yep. I'm sticking with 'facilitated problem solving' at the local level - nothing else seems to work - and feel its not so much a matter of scaling up but building cohesion between all the locally applied local solutions so that the accumulated benefits deal with how those local problems express themselves at scale

Debt to GDP commentary aside, how about the viability of the petrodollar cycle and the increasing use of alternative currencies, by the global South? Pacific Island nations may shift in that direction as well; considering the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is at their door steps.