A Latent Surplus: Changing Value of Sedentarizing and Semi-Urbanizing Nomadic Bedouin Children of Israel
Author(s)
Meir, Avinoam; Ben-David, Yosef
Abstract
Past norms awarded nomadic Bedouin children with high economic and socio-political value, in addition to the theistic norm of multiplicity of children. Due to semi-urbanization, the economic value of young and adult children has declined. Children leave the production cycle and enter the consumption cycle. This process is related to shrinking pastoral resources and to becoming a public-service and labor-market dependent society. In contrast, the socio-political value of children is still high, due precisely to the same semi-urbanization process. Semi-urbanization has produced contradictory processes, and thus the social norm of value of children has changed from uniform to pluralistic. Consequently the Bedouin are now within a demographic state of latent surplus of children.
