Let’s go back to the fishing households I introduced in my previous column. This is to illustrate how social production or handing down on children the social status of parents along with the various forms of capitals may be mediated by parental aspirations for their children that subsequently determined the social mobility of the latter.
Both types of fishers, municipal and commercial, are dependent upon the marine environment as resource base but they differ on how and where they fish and market captured fisheries.
Expectedly, the former produce and earn less compared to the latter because of the differences in fishing technologies and the seascape where they fish.
All other things being equal, the former is poor while the latter is rich due to a differential access to economic, cultural, and social capitals.
Studies and anecdotal reports agree that the general situation of fisheries in the country is deteriorating not only due to climate change impact but also because of fishing pressure as a consequence of the increasing demand for protein food from the sea to feed an exponentially expanding human population.
The destructive, unregulated, and unsustainable fishing practices of both types of fishers further add to a worsening fisheries.
The food security and well-being particularly of the municipal fishers are in jeopardy.
Thus, this leads to the question if the parents of fishing households would still want their children to engage in fishing when they would have their own families.
It is assumed that under normal condition, children would most likely inherit the livelihoods of their parents that had supported them as they grew up. Involving male children in fishing trips illustrates what sociologists call anticipatory socialization.
Children may voluntarily choose fishing as future livelihood if this is the only available option or because parents deliberately involve them in fishing at present, directly or indirectly. Other parents may have encouraged one or two of their children into fishing to continue it as a family legacy being handed down through generation.
A survey we conducted in southern Negros in 2019 showed that only three out of 10 fishing households wanted their children to continue fishing as a livelihood when they have their own families.
This is an interesting finding and this aspiration has to be sustained, from the perspective of conservationists, because fishing pressure may be reduced in the future given the present sad state of fisheries.
For sociologists, this suggests that a majority of the parents of fishing households did not want their children to follow their occupational path–they wanted something better. A little more of the municipal fishers than the commercial fishers shared this aspiration perhaps due to the disadvantaged position of the former at present.
Nonetheless, the parents shared same reasons for not wanting their children to go into fishing, but the frequency of responses suggests differential priorities and concerns between municipal and commercial fishing households.
Municipal fishers foresaw a better life for their children if they can finish school and find other jobs because fishing is dangerous particularly with erratic the weather condition at present. This may be a reflection of their personal experiences.
On the other hand, a plurality of commercial fishers considered fishing a physically challenging livelihood and they wanted their children, who are already in college, to earn a degree and find better sources of income rather than in fishing.
Generally, all types of fishers must have perceived that fishing may be no longer a viable and profitable livelihood in the future due to increasing competition over declining fish catch brought about by the destruction of the marine environment.
So how could the government and NGOs concerned about the worsening state of our fisheries assist these households that wanted to draw away their children from fishing?
As hinted earlier, drawing a huge number of fishers now away from fishing would reduce pressure on critical fisheries particularly in southern Negros.
At the same time, if the children of fishers have earned college degrees or acquired new skills away from fishing, these would provide them better opportunity for employment or enterprise development.
Actually, national government has programs in response to the said issues that the fishing households could have accessed and wisely utilized.
One program which provides money to indigent families to support the education and health needs of qualified children is the Conditional Cash Transfer Program, popularly known as 4Ps.
Incidentally, this program has been criticized to have caused the indolence of some beneficiaries.
The Alternative Learning System has been introduced to give opportunity for the out-of-school children to pursue their studies if they cannot access formal education in schools.
Moreover, the free public basic education program is now extended to public higher education for deserving poor students.
There is also the Technology Education & Skills Development Authority which offers short term skills training and certification of competencies which graduates could use to seek employment within the country or abroad.
These are relevant programs that have to be examined if fishing households have actually benefited from them to the fullest, and if these had helped in realizing the aspirations of parents for their children to be drawn out from fishing.
My past research on child labor in fishing somewhere in southern Negros revealed that students frequently missed classes during months when fish catch was abundant.
Expectedly, they did not learn much when they missed classes and some eventually dropped out from school.
Actually, the children did not like to be hooked into fishing because of the risks and hardships involved, but they have no better options. Those who stopped schooling wanted to go back while others hoped to find other jobs which may be difficult because they have no skills.
So the main concern now is how to keep these children in school and be inspired to finish and acquire either technical-vocational skills or college degrees as cultural capital for getting better livelihoods.
While the challenge is so great for the government schools to provide free quality basic education to these children so they are better equipped to avail of free tuition in state universities and colleges, the families of poor municipal fishers have to be assisted also find alternative livelihoods.
In this manner the children who feel the improvement in the economic conditions of their parents will not be tempted to skip classes and go fishing at times when catch is abundant.
They no longer have to decide either to earn from fishing or to learn from school.
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Author’s email: [email protected]
