By Kemon White
A recent study has revealed that fear of single motherhood, financial pressure and unaffordable housing are among the factors causing some young Jamaicans to delay having children.
The research, conducted by Sexual and Reproductive Health Specialist Shelly-Ann Weeks, suggests that the country’s declining birth rate is not necessarily driven by a rejection of parenthood but by concerns about the conditions in which children would be raised.
Ms Weeks, speaking recently on Radio Jamaica’s Beyond the Headlines, said 80 per cent of the young people participating in her ongoing research indicated that they want children. But she said the women surveyed were adamant that they would not willingly raise a child alone.
“They don’t have any plans to be a single mother,” she said, stressing that “they need support, and they definitely need the other person who participated in making the child to be active in the child’s life.”
“And then the next thing they talk about, of course, is economic finances, which comes back to the need for support. They want to make sure that they can provide a good life for any child that they bring into the world.”
The findings come amid concern about Jamaica’s declining birth rate and debate over what is discouraging young adults from starting families.
Ms. Weeks cited the high cost of housing as another major concern for young Jamaicans considering whether to have children, “because they think of housing as this distant astronomical thing that they’ll never be able to achieve because it is so expensive. So they talk about it as something that they feel that government can help them with, that they need help with housing. Because if they’re going to have a child, the child needs somewhere to live.”
Saint Lucia, facing a similar challenge, recently introduction a one-time newborn grant worth roughly 55-thousand Jamaican dollars to help mothers with immediate childcare expenses.