A Review of the Impact of Different Social Policy Incentives to Accelerate Population Growth Rate

Abstract

Context: Cash payments or other incentive policies to improve population growth rate have been used for many years; but the efficiency of these policies has not yet been fully understood. We provide a brief background to different incentive population policies for accelerating birth rate and its underlying rationale and consequences. Evidence Acquisition: For our search strategy, we reviewed the J store, Medline, science direct, ISI database, and the WHO Reproductive Health Library. The study comprised all published and unpublished accounts on cash and other incentive programs, with especial reference to key considerations on the use of these policies. The majority of studies have been conducted in developed countries and policies are focused on addressing basic factors such as women’s decision making on childbearing, poverty, or western life style. Results: In general, there are four different types of incentive policy instruments that can potentially influence childbearing: direct cash payments such as baby bonus payments and family allowances, indirect transfers such as tax exemptions, housing policies, health care or child tax credits, creating better working conditions for mothers like improving work–family compatibility such as maternity and paternity leave with or without salary-maintenance, or availability, acceptability, accessibility of high quality and inexpensive nursery in the workplace, and inadvertent policies such as new graduate recruitment system which help young people find regular jobs, and schools could act as go-betweens in the recruitment process since employers prefer hiring recent graduates. Conclusions: We conclude that policies aimed at reducing the incompatibility between work and the factors associated with mothers' roles such as maternity leaves, childcare, and early education affecting women’s childbearing and younger age pregnancies. However, ongoing researches will shed more light on the efficacy of each incentive policies in the context of Iran.