[letslightafire]

Most people who are that poor are not educated enough about reproduction to prevent childbirth due to lack of sexual contraceptives or information about safe-sex. They are born to absolute poverty and know little outside of their little town or country. Sex to them might just be seen as something you do with little to no consequence or something that just comes easily.

What you see as suffering might be seen as normal daily life to them which is terrible. The way most children in richer countries live might seem foreign to them. That being said, infant mortality is also very high in those countries so a chunk of those children born will not make it past 20 years old.

I do believe that as countries get richer the people of the country start having more responsibilities and jobs and those overwhelm the time available to take care of kids.

[joefourier]

It might also be that having kids increases your economic prosperity in the case of many poor individuals - extra manual labour on a farm, additional household income, and a retirement strategy for when you are older and incapable of supporting yourself independently.

[iguy]

poor are not educated enough about reproduction to prevent childbirth

Many people say this. But it's worth knowing that, historically, lots of societies firmly limited reproduction when they were as poor as (say) most of Africa is now. The methods varied.

[letslightafire]

I can only think of China as an example of purposely limiting reproduction, what others are there?

[iguy]

Right, 20th century China is the example of government limiting reproduction which springs to mind.

What I had in mind was people limiting their own. In the west the main mechanism was delayed marriage (i.e. saving up a socially approved amount of money first) which kept us well away from starvation 500 years ago. In china/japan I believe the pattern was more infanticide (in the same period) but know less about this.