Last month, Clare Huntington* published a book, “Failure to Flourish: How Law Undermines Family Relationships”. Although she is talking about poverty and inequality in America, her argument on the importance of family in poverty reduction may also be relevant for international development. She argue that families play a great role in reducing poverty through early childhood development.

It reminds me of the word of a well-known researcher. A few weeks ago, he spoke in a post-2015 seminar to point out how skeptical he is about the role of migration and remittance for development. Having acknowledge its rising importance in poverty reduction, he argued that getting jobs abroad could generate more children growing up without parents. It would then affect mental development of children. Although he did not show any evidence and economic analysis to support his argument, the topic gives us food for thought for the development agenda in the coming decades.

In that sense, the literature presented in this video may be of our interest in the context of developing countries.

Reference
Clare Huntington (2014) Failure to Flourish: How Law Undermines Family Relationships. Oxford University Press

*Clare Huntington is a law professor at Fordham University Law School.