Reflective Journal Questions (2024)

Name (stud no): 3036385597

Group number: 12
1. In the context of the game design and real-world situations, how does the number of children
influence the likelihood of a family in a developing country escaping poverty?

From the game design, I think the more children you have the less likely you will have any
savings in the future. Expenditure on kids hit exceptionally hard when we were faced with the
need to provide education to them. In my group we had 3 children, so to manage our finances
considerably we gave an education degree just to one of them. Also, it was a boy because we
thought in the realm of poor countries and patriarchy, a boy might have better chances in
succeeding. In the real world, I think return on investments from children should be higher if
there is a high number of investments in their education and physical health. I also think that in
poor and developing countries boys would have much more chances to climb to the top of the
ruling power or any high-earning career paths than girls.

2. The game is structured to provide various recovery opportunities from unfavorable

decisions. Despite this, individuals in poverty often find their circumstances challenging
to change, a struggle that might be hard for those living comfortable lives to understand.
Could you explain how enduring poverty psychologically could influence their chances
of escaping it?

In the game, we were introduced to several poverty traps that people in poor and developing
countries tend to ignore because of the current circumstances that they got adapted to. One of
them is nutrition poverty trap, which emerges from the fact that people living in poorer countries,
when provided with additional financial aid, do not think about maximizing calorie intake but
rather getting food that is better-tasting and more expensive. This problem stems from financial
illiteracy and not being able to evaluate their current situation objectively for future financial
planning. People in poor countries are used to being poor, so when given an opportunity to
change their current situation, they tend to focus more on instant gratification and ignore future
consequences of such inconsiderate decisions. Another thing people with disadvantaged
backgrounds tend to ignore is so-called “low-hanging fruits” such as deworming children,
purifying water through chlorine bleach and so on. This tendency could also be attributed to the
fact that they don’t have an opportunity to think about a bigger scope of their decisions because
the poverty almost “runs” in the families, and they don’t know any better. Thus, enduring
poverty psychologically could influence their chances of escaping it if they were given an
opportunity to think about their future to a greater extent.

3. Please explain why both having and not having a loan might lead to sustained poverty in
the game and in the real developing world? How might financial facilities assist people
in escaping poverty?

Both having and not having a loan might indeed have a similar outcome: sustained poverty. This
is because financial aid donors tend to disregard lack of financial literacy of people in poor
countries, different financial systems that operate in that region, and even sometimes
unawareness of the existence of formal sources of borrowing. In that case, when we provide
financial assistance, it might not suit the way people imagine repaying their debts because they
don’t get offered financial loans officially, or it might also lead to debt traps and financial
instability. Just like that, people in poor countries, due to the lack of banks that come to villages
to offer loans, tend to borrow from each other with the interest rates per day achieving 4.7%. In
such way, if one gets a loan of a $5 loan, in one year it will create a debt of nearly $100 million.
Not having access to loans, on the other hand, just limits the opportunities for the future
investment of the poor families. If we are going to talk about financial facilities that could help
people to escape poverty, we must initially focus on spreading financial literacy among the
regions. Easterly in his various works also argues that for developing countries to seize all the
opportunities that financial loans and aids might provide, donor countries should primarily focus
on changing the financial systems of the recipient countries and ensure a way for those countries
to be able to repay their debts. There should also be impartial organs that would check the
correctness of operations of both sides.

4. Not all groups asked questions. Could you explain how responses to some questions
(private or public) assisted your decision-making process? If you think there weren't any
or didn't ask any questions, looking back, what questions would you have asked to
improve your family's outcomes in the game?

It was important to see what general responses to the questions were to effectively evaluate in
which direction our family’s financial situation was heading. I appreciated the opportunity to see
how having a certain number of children or managing to buy a certain amount of food and other
scenarios could significantly or insignificantly affect our savings and finances. In the future, I
think it would be relevant to add more questions that will not change finances of the family
drastically to introduce cases, which are not always important in making financial decisions.

5. Do you think that impoverished people make rational decisions? Could you provide
examples from the game and lecture to substantiate your answer? Please discuss
whether making rational decisions assists them in escaping poverty or whether it largely
depends on other factors. Could you explain why impoverished people might find it
challenging to make rational decisions, provide examples of such situations, and
suggest some ways to help them?

I think impoverished people don’t make rational decisions. We are talking about people who are
so poor they don’t just make a living wage; they don’t have a roof over their head and food on
their table. The first reason for that is they don’t have adequate calorie, macro- and
micronutrients intake, which is why it is harder for them physically to even evaluate the situation
objectively. Second, they don’t have access to the information poor or ordinary people (in terms
of wealth) have; thus, tend to fall into nutrition poverty traps, debt traps (if they are given any
financial loans), and ignore “low-hanging fruits”. Another significant aspect to mention is their
habituation to their current circumstances and being reluctant to make any changes due to
hopelessness, despair, and lack of motivation. Thus, in assisting them in escaping poverty, we
should primarily focus on first providing them with the first aid, and necessary for living
conditions. And only then, after they are fully recovered, can we provide them with an
opportunity to plan on how to escape poverty through hard work.

6. Please propose feasible improvements for the game.

I think including why families tend to prefer certain gendered child in their family could have
been useful. Also, including more cases of “low-hanging fruits” would be useful to take hold of
that concept. In addition, an opportunity to interact with other families for borrowing, trades and
so on would also enhance the simulation.

End