Demographic science and the redirection of population policy

Abstract

To date efforts at curtailing population growth in developing countries have been bipolarized into the ‘economic development’ approach on the one hand, and the family planning approach on the other. The first sees decreases in family size as the long-range resultant of a complete socio-economic overhauling which, in turn, leads to a desire for fewer children. The second overlooks the institutionalization of reproduction entirely and assumes that education and communication regarding birth control will eventually reduce births to a level in keeping with low mortality. Neither approach seems to be practical taken alone, nor do they even appear to be adequate in combination. Population growth is clearly impeding economic development in many poor countries, rather than itself being reduced through the modernization process. Family planning programs are not lowering birth rates among the mass of the people in such countries, and their failure is understandable in view of their superficiality. We are thus led to ask whether additional types of direct action for reducing family size cannot be incorporated into population policy. In answer, we have taken the position that the limitation of alternatives is more a function of insufficient thought and analysis than actual circumscription of choice. For example, theory and research accounting for declining family size in Western societies is as relevant for direct action concerning reproduction as it is for indirect action respecting family size (such as economic development). It is instructive to analyze the present-day preference in industrial societies for approximately three children from the standpoint of the institutional barriers to further declines. We then see that the purely economic assumptions concerning the utility of children discount too readily the importance to individuals of the noneconomic benefits involved in reproduction. These far exceed simple affectional or companionship elements, since they are built into the achievement of familial statuses and the success of marriage. When one analyzes further why modern, urban, mobile individuals are so familially oriented, one cannot discount the advantages of the family group in a modern world. But one must also take into account the strong social controls which isolate individuals from alternative roles and satisfactions and, hence, bolster their intense feelings of dependency on the family, and a fortiori on having children. It would thus appear that policies expressly related to family roles, and opportunities for legitimate alternative satisfactions and activities, constitute the crux of future reduction in family size because they directly assault the motivational framework of reproduction. Moreover, many of these policies for influencing the family do not depend on prior economic development, they can be implemented concomitantly with modernization strategies. Regardless of the level of development, policy can undermine the utilities found in offspring (thereby allowing a sense of increased costs to prevail) and can structure itself in terms of crucial existing foci of change in the society. We have used female labor force participation as an example because it met both of these criteria—a lessening of family involvement on the part of a disadvantaged (and hence potentially revolutionary) group. Numerous additional facets of policy come to mind, one such being rigidly compulsory education of children which would remove them as potential economic utilities (even as household help on anything but a token level), all the while effectively putting intellectual barriers between them and the past generation. Regardless of the specific paths taken by population policy, its designers cannot afford to overlook the lesson already available to them in the substantial family-size desires and actualities to be found in presently industrial countries. Modernization and birth control alone will clearly not bring family size into line with modern levels of mortality unless this reproductive institution is itself modified to make the small family a way of life.