I am not going to dive into research to find out, but I bet the research does exist and points more in one direction than the other. Your situation sounds difficult and I’m sorry you’re dealing with it.
Genetic imperative to have children, huh? So…some women can control their sexual and reproductive urges and let their intellect guide their choices, while others must answer the call of the wild? And here I thought we needed to ensure better education and access to birth control. The irony here is that I’m pretty sure I have a way higher opinion of poor women than you do.
To @davide405, that is interesting. I did some additional reading and have some issues with this, but if there is actually a problem that can be solved by literally throwing money at it, that would be fantastic. I am not being at all sarcastic. Imagine no social services, no public programs targeting the effects of poverty, no bloated bureaucratic oversight, no ancillary housing programs, food programs, summer school programs, after school programs…Just an automatic check sent every month to every US citizen (in Canada and Namibia they give money to all, regardless of income) and poverty and everything that goes with it is either gone or dramatically reduced. I don’t believe for one second this would work here, but I would love to be wrong. They’re doing pilot tests of paying at risk kids to attend school (with discouraging results) so maybe someone will pick this up and pilot test it. I would root for its success, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
