The study of economic has undergone profound chancges during the 1970s. Old cliches and shibboleths about necessary conditions and historical determinants have been replaced by a healthy agnosticism and a refreshing willingness to reexamine the conventional wisdorn and to focus oln the specific problems and the day-to-day issues facing developing nations. The very meaning of the term development has been altered from ian almost exclusive preoccupation with aggregate economic growth to a much broader interpretation that encompasses questions of absolute poverty, growing inequality, and rising unemployment, as well as aggregate growth in gross national product (GNP). If nothing else, the 1970s will be remembered as a decade during which the problems of international poverty, growing food scarcity, and rapid population growth rose to the top of the agenda of the debate. In the field of population economics, the 1970s also witnessed a proliferation of sophisticated macroeconomic-demographic models, and, particularly, an intense theoretical and quantitative examination of the microeconomic determinants of household fertility decisions. Recent research has increased understanding of several of the major socioconomic determinants of family size. Yet, in spite of the construction of ever more complex theoretical inodels and the use of the most sophisticated econometric techniques and conmputer simulations, little new in the way of a concrete and practical framework for policy planning has emerged to (guide developing country governml-sents in their attempts to modify demo-