Discussion: Prospects for Population Control

Abstract

The main message of Professor Bogue's paper is simple and is stated in clear and forceful terms. According to him, there is every indication that mankind is taking effective steps to reduce fertility. These steps, by the year 2000, will bring fertility down to manageable proportions. He does not stop to say that even this optimistic prognostication will mean a world population of six billion or more, with resulting changes in the quality of life probably more far reaching than anything we are able currently to imagine.' Apart from this main message, there are two or three partly explicit, partly implied statements which are inherently at least as interesting as the main message and yet more realistic and operationally more significant. Professor Bogue's confidence that humanity is over the hump with its fertility problem is based on several arguments: 1. There is increasingly general support of the political, economic, medical and educational leadership in all countries of the world. 2. Preferred family size is already very small and getting smaller. 3. Birth control methods are becoming more effective, cheaper, pleasanter to use. 4. Social scientists are becoming more effective in manipulating human populations. 5. Massive financial investments, both national and international, are taking place in the field of family planning.