Reflecting on the demographic crisis in the 21st century necessarily leads to what is the most defining phenomenon for the future of developed countries: the prolonged stagnation of birth rates at levels that do not ensure population replacement. This inability to renew generations immediately compromises the capacity for intergenerational cooperation, economic productivity, and innovation, but also generates social, emotional, and affective effects resulting from social atomization, loneliness, weak civic engagement, and disinvestment in family commitments.

This trend of demographic stagnation awakens us to the need for reflection that helps to understand the material circumstances, values, and behavior patterns that may be at its origin. In this, as in so many other phenomena, it is possible to deepen the knowledge about the whole from the margins, in this case, from a kind of stronghold of resistance in the midst of a generalized birth crisis. This stronghold of resistance – or peripheral reality of society – corresponds to large families. In this sense, it is proposed to focus on the experiences of these families, regarding their motivations, values, resource management, habits of cooperation, cohabitation, and sharing, and the image they have of themselves in relation to the society in which they are inserted.

In addition to the possibility of distinguishing factors favorable to birth rates, looking at the experiences of large families, interpreting them as a periphery, favors a more plural understanding of ways of life that challenge dominant norms and overwhelming circumstances.