PERSPECTIVES ON POPULATION POLICY AND RESEARCH

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-'D,=rspectives
on Population Policy
and Research
RONALD G. RIDKER
Resources for the Future / Washington, D.C.
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Tlns ARTICLE is taken from Population and Dever?r vment: The Search
for Selective Interventions, edited by Ronald G. .Oc 1976 The
Johns Hopkins University Press. Contents of the complete book, sched-
uled for fall 1976 publication, are listed below. ISBN 0-8018-1847-8.
$22.50.
Contents
Preface
1. Perspectives on Population Policy and Research /
RONALD G. RIDKER
2. Income, Wealth, and Their Distribution as Policy Tools in
Fertility Control / JULIAN L. SIMON
3. Direct Economic Costs and Value of Children /
ROBERT G. REPETTO
4. The Economic Value of Children in Peasant Agriculture /
EVA MUELLER
5. Education and Human Fertility: Sociological Perspectives /
DONALD B. HOLSINGER AND JOHN D. KASARDA
6. Population Growth and Educational Policies: An Economic
Perspective / DENNIS N. DE TRAY
7. The Effects of Nutrition and Health on Fertility: Hypotheses,
Evidence, and Interventions / WILLIAM P. BUTZ AND
JEAN-PIERRE HABICHT
8. Interrelationships Between Mortality and Fertility /
T. PAUL SCHULTZ
9. The Roles of Rural Women: Female Seclusion, Economic
Production, and Reproductive Choice / RUTH B. DIXON
10. Female Employment Creation and Family Size /
JAMES L. MCCABE
11. Mass Media and Modern Consumer Goods: Their Suitability
for Policy Interventions to Decrease Fertility /
DEBORAH S. FREEDMAN
12. Residential Location and Fertility / DAVID GOLDBERG
Conference Participants
References
Index
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Perspectives on Population Policy
and Research
RONALD G. RIDKER
Within the broad spectrum of proposals aired at the Bucharest World
Population Conference in 1974, the two policies most commonly advo-
cated for reducing population growth in poor countries were more rapid
economic growth and more effective family-planning programs. The for-
mer, it is believed, creates the desire for smaller families and the latter
provide the means. There is evidence to support both positions. No
country has ever achieved a high standard of living without experienc-
ing a significant decline in its birth rate. Nor has any sizable country in
modern times experienced low birth rates over sustained periods in the
absence of significant economic growth. One can argue about the degree
to which these generalizations apply to this country, or that, and can find
historical counterexamples. Moreover, some hopeful signs in one or
two of the developing countries indicate that birth rates may fall in the
next few decades before general economic development occurs. But as
generalizations go in this field these two are better than most.
There is also growing evidence from a variety of countries which sug-
gests that easier access to the information, services, and supplies pro-
vided by modem family-planning programs is effective in reducing the
gap between desired and actual family size (Berelson 1974; IBRD
1974, ch. 5; Mauldin 1975). The extent of the effect in relation to the
1 New evidence on the demographic transition in nineteenth-century Europe
indicates that in some areas birth rates began declining before the. spread of a
number of important aspects of development, such as rising standards of living,
industrialization, urbanization, and declines in mortality. This fact, plus the sub-
stantial differences between nineteenth-century Europe and today's less developed
countries, should make us pause before assuming that development today is either
a necessary or a sufficient condition for a decline in birth rates, despite the high
correlation between the two. For an excellent summary of this viewpoint, see
Teitelbaum (1975).
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effort involved is difficult to judge because of substitutions between
methods, simultaneously occurring social and economic changes that
also influence family size, and difficulties in measuring levels and quality
of effort. But there is no reason to doubt that such programs are capable
of reaching and influencing those persons who are already motivated or
easily encouraged to have small families.
For countries with good prospects for rapid socioeconomic develop-
ment and reasonably good administrative infrastructures, sustained ef-
forts in both these directions may indeed prove to be sufficient, though
the time lags involved could be substantial. The most difficult problem
arises in those countries that cannot achieve adequate rates of develop-
ment in the near future, just because of rapid population growth.
In such cases, the number of persons desiring small families may not
grow fast enough to give even the best-run family-planning program
enough to work on. If population growth is to be curbed reasonably
soon, such countries must search for a third approach. This volume is
dedicated to that search.
Each of the essays presented here focuses on one hypothesized socio-
economic determinant of fertility believed to be amenable to policy
manipulation. The authors were asked to review what is known about
the linkages between these determinants and fertility, to consider poli-
cies that might affect these determinants in a direction favorable to a
decline in fertility, and to discuss research needs and possibilities to fill
gaps in our understanding of these linkages and the efficacy of possible
policies. Not all determinants and policy choices have been discussed. In
general, we have limited ourselves to possibilities of changing the en-
vironment within which marital and parental decisions are made so as
to increase the costs and decrease the benefits, broadly defined, that are
perceived to be associated with the bearing and rearing of children,
focusing on those that seem compatible with other goals, such as eco-
nomic development, political stability, and individual freedom of choice.
Within this set the choice has been further limited by a number of prac-
tical considerations, including the availability of information and
hunches about promising possibilities. For example, legal and legis-
lative changes pertaining to such factors as the age of marriage, school
attendance, and child labor were set aside on grounds that while they
do reinforce and sanction changes in attitudinal and behavioral patterns
that are already under way, they cannot in general initiate such changes
in an environment that is not ripe for it. In contrast, we have given sub-
stantial, though far from exclusive, emphasis to economic variables,
since much of the business of government is to manipulate these vari-
ables. While many of them seem to be less strongly associated with
fertility than some psychological and sociological variables, the policy
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power than in the "instrumental" capacity of a possible determinant of
fertility.
Our focus is on poor countries that believe they have a population
problem and are actively trying to do something about it. Because of
the paucity of data on any one country, however, we must utilize evi-
dence wherever it can be found. This problem-as well as the proclivi-
ties of some of the authors-has led to a greater emphasis on research
needs and findings than on policy. Stronger emphasis on matters of
policy would require getting into specific cultural, economic, institu-
tional, and political issues within a particular country or even a region
of a country-which it would have been highly inappropriate for us to
attempt at the distance from which our observations were made. The
governments involved must take the responsibility for utilizing the avail-
able evidence and sponsoring the additional studies necessary to turn
general suggestions of the type presented in this volume into specific sets
of policies that make sense in each locale. We shall be satisfied if the
volume contributes to that process. Indeed, one indicator of success will
be the rapidity with which this volume is made obsolete by more de-
tailed, policy-oriented studies in specific countries.
A wide array of results are found in studies that attempt to relate
income to fertility. Some find a positive, others a negative, and still
others a curvilinear relationship as family income rises from low levels;
and in a few studies no relationship at all is found. Part of the reason
for these mixed results is the poor quality of the available data. Income,
for example, should mean the full family income a couple expects to
receive over their lifetimes, not the money income received in a par-
ticular year and certainly not. some per capita regional or national
average. But the most important reason is a failure to separate statis-
tically the demographic effects of income from those of other variables.
Practically all socioeconomic variables that might be important in ex-
plaining fertility are correlated with income; unless these variables are
identified and measured and adjustments are made for their effects, one
cannot properly assess the pure effect of income, however carefully
defined and measured it may be.
Julian Simon tries to make sense of these studies by dividing them in
two groups: those that are more or less appropriate for measuring what
he calls the short-run, direct effects of income and those that come
closer to measuring the long-run, total effects. The latter include the
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effects on fertility that operate indirectly through such variables as edu-
cation and health, which are also influenced by the change in income.
Since the immediate- effect of an increase in income is to make it easier
to finance marriage and support children, one would expect that the
short-run, direct effect is positive: more income encourages larger fam-
ilies. This is just what Simon finds. In contrast, he finds that the long
run, total effect tends to be negative, at least above the lowest income
levels. While a number of hypotheses have been put forward to explain
these long-run results-and we shall come back to some of them in
other sections-statistical problems make it difficult to put forward any
explanation in which great confidence can be placed.
Unfortunately, these findings are of little help in making policy
recommendations. The short-run effect is positive rather than negative,
and to take full advantage of the long-run effect requires general eco-
nomic development, which presumably is being pushed as fast as it can
be in any case. But more to the point, these findings are too general
and unspecific to be useful for policy. The effect of a change in in-
come is likely to vary. depending on whose income is being changed
(which socioeconomic groups and which family members), how it is
changed (through transfers, changes in the labor market such as in-
creased wages or opportunities for more work, or changes in the owner-
ship of wealth, for example), whether the change is considered transi-
tory or permanent, and whether it is provided without reference to
fertility behavior or is offered upon the condition of a change in- such
behavior (that is, as an incentive). It is at this level of detail that we are
likely to find useful policy suggestions. For example, while the short-run
effects on fertility of an increase in adult male earnings and opportuni-
ties for child labor are likely to be positive, both the short-run and the
long-run effects of an increase in female wages or opportunities for
work outside the home could well be strongly negative." Similarly, there
is good reason to believe that a conditional transfer of income will have
a strong negative effect on fertility, even if the underlying pure income
effect is positive.
Such issues are discussed later in this chapter. In the remainder of
this section we concentrate on the question of which family incomes are
being raised. Specifically, what difference would a change in income
distribution have on fertility rates?
Recent thinking about economic development has shifted somewhat
away from an exclusive emphasis on general economic development
2 Such results are found in a number of U.S. studies. See De Tray (1972),
Cain and Weininger (1973), and Lindert (forthcoming, ch. 5). But also see
chapter 10 in this volume for a contrary view.
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owar a oncern or t e poorest segments of the population. Frus-
trated attempts to raise national growth rates to acceptable levels in
some countries, growing evidence that the poor often do not participate
in whatever national growth there is, and recent concerns that the rural
poor may have to be enlisted in the development process if adequate
supplies of food and agricultural raw materials are to be forthcoming
for other segments of the population have all come together to explain
this new emphasis. Parallel with this shift in focus of development pro-
grams have come suggestions that redistribution of income might also
encourage a more rapid rate of decline in the birth rate.-3 Typically, the
poorer 60 percent of households receive 30 percent of the income but
have fertility rates some 50 percent higher than the richer 40 percent
of households. If socioeconomic development were concentrated here,.
perhaps the birth rate could be reduced by a larger amount per dollar of
investment than it could by means of an across-the-board approach.
The little evidence that is available is certainly encouraging, as
Simon's review indicates. But several questions can be raised about this
approach. First, why should a redistribution of income in favor of the
poor be effective in lowering their birth rates? If the argument is based
on the assumption of emulation of upper-income-class norms, it is not
at all certain which way completed family size would be affected. Is it
the desire of lower-income groups to emulate the consumption patterns
or the completed family size of the rich? If the former, the poor should
now be having fewer children than do the rich, since larger shares of
their incomes must be laid out in attempting to achieve those expendi-
ture norms per child, and in this case an increase in their income would
raise their fertility. If the latter, fertility would fall with an increase in
income as the poor acquired the knowledge and means to purchase
modern contraceptives. But if inadequate knowledge and contraceptive
supplies are the principal reasons that the poor have more children than
the rich, surely a cheaper way to close this gap is through a focused
program of family planning. If the argument is based. on the long-run,
total effects of the change in absolute level of income, as Simon suggests,
we must ask whether these total effects are likely to occur as a conse-
quence of income redistribution alone; that is, without concomitant
changes in the provision of social overhead capital and other struc-
tural changes-perhaps even including urbanization and occupational
changes-which are normally associated with modernization and de-
velopment.
See chapter 2 in this volume for references to the literature. In addition, the
World Bank has recently added a- strong voice to this chorus. See IBRD (1974,
ch. 5).
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Secon , the evt once is ase on c ata that o not permit us to
answer such questions. It is virtually impossible to hold cultural and
institutional variables constant in cross-country comparisons, and data
from the national level, while suggestive, provide little basis for indicat-
ing whether it is the relative or the absolute income effect of the redistri-
bution that is important or which of the many variables normally corre-
lated with income have also to -be changed to bring about the desired
effect .4
Third, as Simon demonstrates, the specific measures utilized to imple-
ment the redistribution are likely to be more important than the redis-
tribution itself. For example, on the basis of survey data indicating that
family size among peasants increases with landholdings, he suggests that
the net effect of land reform could be an increase in aggregate fertility.
This. finding is, of course, very shaky, and as Eva Mueller points out,
uniformly small holdings, as they exist in Taiwan, would reduce both
the need and the opportunities for employment of children in peasant
societies. The most promising approach, Simon believes, is redistribu-
tion of educational facilities, providing in particular more primary- and
secondary-level facilities in rural areas.
Such redistributions, however, are difficult to implement, and their
effects on fertility could take several decades to be felt. For these rea-
sons, but even more important because redistributions involve political
acts of profound dimensions, it is unrealistic to believe that they will
ever be proposed for the primary purpose of reducing fertility.
The overall impression with which one is left is that unconditional
transfers of income, while they could well be effective in lowering fer-
tility in the long run, operate through a wide variety of other variables
associated with modernization and development. If one is to speed up
the process, either these other variables must be identified and the most
critical ones changed as a package along with income (or the capacity
to produce income), or the transfer must be made conditional upon an
appropriate fertility response. This is a theme to which we will return
after reviewing the possible impact of a number of these other variables.
No one would claim that children are desired solely or even primarily
because of their value as productive economic assets, but it would be a
4 An exception to this statement may be a recently completed (but not yet
published) study by Robert G. Repetto of households in Puerto Rico in which he
tries to separate the relative from the absolute income effect and finds that the
latter is more important.
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rare case in which this consideration was entirely absent. And so long
as it is present to some degree, the economic benefits and costs of chil-
dren are worth investigating, for they are far more capable of being
influenced by policy than are most of the noneconomic benefits and
costs associated with children.
Given the broad view of their field often taken by economists, prac-
tically everything to be discussed in this volume affects the economic
value of children. But here we consider just two principal components:
the net contribution that children make to the family's income through
their work (that is, their production minus their consumption) and the
contribution they make later in life to the support of aging parents.
Unfortunately, the available evidence is not only spotty and scarce, it
is also ill suited for policy analysis. It is most useful for answering ques-
tions on the extent of the economic contributions and costs of chil-
dren, while the fundamental need, as Repetto points out, is for in-
formation on how fertility changes when these economic benefits and
costs change, no matter what the extent or even the sign of the net
contribution. Still, an understanding of the economic role played by
children may provide some hints about the feasibility of different policy
alternatives and about the likely value of additional research to generate
the more appropriate kinds of data.
Attitude surveys, anecdotal evidence, and even some a priori reason-
ing suggest that raising children provides some net economic benefits
to parents, at least in peasant societies. But after carefully sifting
through the evidence Mueller finds that children are usually a heavy
economic burden. Up to some age between fifteen and nineteen they
produce substantially less than they consume; indeed, aggregate pro-
duction does not equal aggregate consumption, even by a male, until
some time in his twenties, when he begins to have his own children to
support. This finding is particularly significant because, first, Mueller
makes an extreme effort to find positive asset values for children at birth
(for example, by choice of assumptions on hours of work, wages, and
consumption, and by not discounting) and, second, because if such
values are negative in peasant societies, they are surely negative for the
rest of society, in particular. for urban areas where the costs of child
rearing tend to be higher and the possibilities for contributing to family
income at early ages tend to be lower.
This conclusion is supported. by evidence indicating that in develop-
ing countries children under the age of fifteen do little economic work
(that is, work contributing to marketable output) and that their produc-
tivity when working, even during peak seasons, tends to be low (pro-
ductivity being judged according to the wages that would be received
for the same-work in the marketplace). It can be argued that this defi-
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nition of productivity excludes housework by children, freeing the
mother for additional economic work. But since children also create
the need for additional housework, a correction for this factor is un?-
likely to change the overall result significantly. It can also be pointed
out that the use of wages, even during peak seasons, represents an
underestimation of the importance of having children available to fill in
when needed. But it is-difficult to believe that day labor hired during
peak seasons would be more expensive than children who have to be
supported throughout the year. School attendance by children under
the age of fifteen certainly provides part of the explanation for low
labor-participation rates by children; but low attendance rates and the
possibility of fitting farm work in around school work suggest that this
is not the principal reason. The most likely and obvious explanation for
these findings of low child labor-participation rates is, simply, that
labor in general is in excess supply in the countrysides of the develop-
ing countries with which we are dealing. If this analysis is correct, we
must reckon with the likelihood that efforts to increase agricultural out-
put through providing the necessary capital and modern inputs, unless
accompanied by other offsetting changes, will result in increased em-
ployment opportunities for children as well as for labor in general.
Combining this evidence with that reviewed by Repetto on the extent
to which changes in the demand for child labor might be expected to
change fertility, we must conclude that the scope for policy intervention
at this point is quite limited. Few studies deal with the change in demand
for child labor per se (as opposed to changes in child labor-participa-
tion rates which are influenced by supply as well as demand); most
researchers, moreover, fail to isolate the effects of other variables such
as school participation and family income (thereby leading to incorrect
inferences about lines of causation). As a consequence, Repetto has
little to work with. But the relevant bits and pieces of econometric,
historical, and sociological materials combine to suggest that while a
decline in demand for child labor will lead to a decline in fertility, the
effect is likely to be small and the time lags involved quite long. Given
Mueller's findings that child labor-participation rates are already low,
plus the likelihood that investments in the agricultural sector may in-
crease the demand for. child labor, there is little room for manipulating
this variable by itself.
The evidence with respect to old-age support is mostly qualitative
and indirect. As Repetto points out, it emerges strongly in attitude sur-
veys in countries where strong family ties are traditional, but little is
known about the actual extent of the transfers. Mueller finds that older
rural males continue working on family farms until very close to the
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age of de thi and thus may not be receiving substantial transfers from
their children
But little is known about the kind and
rod
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it
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.
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the work involved or whether this finding is applicable to those without
the opportunity to work on family farms. Moreover, labor-participation
rates for older women are considerably lower than for elderly men,
suggesting that some transfers must be forthcoming at least for them.
Perhaps more to the point, one can ask whether investments in chil-
dren are the best way to provide for one's needs in old age. A plausible
case can be made that they are not: there is no certainty of a child's sur-
viving and being willing and able to provide support; there are periods
during the life cycle when surpluses are easier to accumulate; and there
are mechanisms available to transfer these surpluses to later stages in
life. With respect to the last point, Repetto argues that markets for the
transfer of capital and land exist, that rates of return in these markets
are high, and that methods are available by which even those with rela-
tively small amounts of savings can take advantage of these opportuni-
ties. Land could be purchased in small increments; small additional
amounts of agricultural output could be set aside for sale in the peak
price season; and even those in debt could increase their uncommitted
income significantly simply by reducing their indebtedness.
On the other band, there are substantial risks involved in attempting
to save and transfer surpluses from one period to another over one's
lifetime. Farm investments are illiquid; money and jewelry can depreci-
ate or be stolen; commercial institutions can go bankrupt. Indeed, -be-
cause of inflation and the risks of theft, fire, floods, confiscation, and
other calamities, the perceived, long-run rate of return on many possible
investments may well be negative. At least the peasant may feel that the
situation is too dangerous to rely on any one approach, that a better
course of action for him may be to save and to have children in case
one of these approaches fails. In fact, the best plan may be to try to have
a son when the father is between the ages of forty and forty-five, for at
that point the probability of the father's surviving to ripe old age is
high, and the probability of the child's surviving long enough to help
his parents (that is, until he marries and has his own children to sup-
port) is fairly good. In addition, the cost of bringing children into
the world is not very high, and the costs of supporting them are spread
over at least ten to fifteen years. Accordingly, even if the economic re-
turn for having a child is negative, it may be less negative than alterna-
tive investments.
But all such arguments may be overshadowed by the fact of long
widowhood in societies where women have little economic power and
even less knowledge of economics. To them, children, especially sons,
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10 POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT
may appear to be all that will save them from destitution after their
husbands are dead, no matter what the economic facts may be.
This area should be a fruitful one for research, and both Repetto
and Mueller provide good suggestions for further work. In addition, the
findings that have already been made have several interesting policy
implications that do not depend on the results of further research..
Efforts to improve access to savings institutions and to reduce the risks
and improve the returns from such investments would be helpful in
reducing the pension value of children as well as being useful for gen-
eral economic development. So, too, would the promotion of life insur-
ance, private pension plans, and other contractual savings arrange..
ments, since they tend to bring about a net increase in the average rate
of savings. Life insurance for children, or at least for the oldest son,
would have an even more direct effect on the pension value of children.
Government-sponsored social security programs would also make sense,
but they could be quite costly unless they were made conditional on
the number of children a couple had.`-
The. linkage between education and fertility poses a paradox for both
researcher and policy maker. On the one hand, probably no other socio-
economic variable has a stronger negative association with fertility. Parents
with more education have smaller families and parents whose children
have more education also have smaller families. These relationships
hold in both cross-sectional and time-series studies at both the national
and the family levels and whether or not other important variables, such
as income and place of residence are controlled. V,"hile in some studies it
has been found that the relationship is positive for families with only a
few years of primary education-suggesting the possibility that it is
necessary to achieve a certain threshold before the negative impact takes
hold-these are exceptions to the general impression to be derived from
reviews of the literature. On the other hand, research has not provided
5 Mueller argues that the cost need not be great, since men continue working
until close to the age of death. But it is likely that they do so out of necessity,
and that if social security were provided to them, they would retire somewhat.
earlier. Moreover, if the effect on the birth rate were not significant, it would be
difficult for the government to accumulate the surplus to pay the pensions. This
problem could be overcome if the size of the pension varied inversely with the
number of surviving children. Some suggested ways to do so are provided by
Ridker and Muscat (1973).
 PERSPECTIVES ON POPULATION POLICY AND RESEARCH 11
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adequate explanations for these correlations, with the consequence that
most policy recommendations in this area remain on uncertain ground.
Do the correlations imply causation or are other factors-such as
industrialization and urbanization-at work to induce parents both to
want fewer children and to give each a better education? Is the effect
direct, or does it operate through other variables, such as female labor-
force participation and wages, that might be influenced by policy more
easily and quickly? Does education operate through changes in attitude,
through changes in lifetime earnings potential, or both? Does its effect
arise only when other factors are present, so that a number of policies-
for example, education and jobs-must be combined for any to have a
significant effect?
This volume presents two major attempts to answer these and re-
lated questions: the contribution by Donald B. Holsinger and John D.
Kasarda, written from a sociological point of view, and the chapter by
Dennis N. De Tray, written from the vantage point of an economist. In
addition, a number of other contributions-in particular those of Robert
G. Repetto, Eva Mueller, and Ruth B. Dixon-touch on educational
policies in significant ways. It is difficult to summarize these diverse and
sometimes conflicting contributions. I will try to do so by organizing the
material in the following way. If parents could be persuaded to keep
their children in school longer, what would be the likely effects, first,
on the parents' desire for additional children and, second, on the chil-
dren's desire for offspring when they reached reproductive age?" Third,
to what extent are these effects associated with quantity of schooling
and to what extent are they, or can they be, influenced by changes in
the content? Fourth, how can parents be induced to keep their children
in school longer or to provide them with a better education? In answer-
ing the first two questions, we divide the effects into three categories,
the effects of changes in tastes and preferences induced by the educa-
tion, income and wealth effects, and the effect on relative prices and
costs.
The Effect on Parents' Desire for Additional Children
It is difficult to see what kinds of effects on parents' tastes and prefer-
ences might arise solely by providing more education to their children,
6 An additional question pertains to the possible effects of providing more
education for parents. But since there was general agreement that such a policy
would not be as effective as providing additional education for their children,
it is not discussed here. De Tray, however, does include a brief discussion of adult
education policies in chapter 6.
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except on subtle levels that can probably be ignored. But there are sev-
eral income and price effects that could be important. First, the addi-
tional years of schooling place two burdens on the family budget: they
reduce the income which children would otherwise contribute to the
family and, depending on the way in which the costs of education are
divided between private and public budgets, they increase the direct
cost of rearing children. Second, the additional schooling increases the
parents' expectations of receiving larger income transfers from a given
child later in life, reducing the number of children needed to help with
old-age security. And third, if the effective price of schooling were re-
duced, it would become more profitable for parents to invest more in
fewer children, substituting "quality" for "quantity," along the lines
suggested by Repetto and De Tray.
Doubts can be raised about the importance of these effects, espe-
cially in peasant societies. Mueller, for example, argues that up to the
age of fifteen the work contribution of children is small and can be
fitted in after school and during vacations and that beyond that age it is
not feasible in poor peasant societies to consider significant extensions
of universal education. The direct costs of sending children to public
schools, especially in primary years, is typically small and in any case
is offset by the baby-sitting function served by schools (although the
value of this service is undoubtedly small where older children are avail-
able to care for younger). Moreover, economic transfers from better-
educated children later in life are far from certain, not only because of
high death rates but also because educated children are more likely to
leave the extended family network of ties and obligations. Unless death
rates fall and the net returns to education are increased significantly,
parents may not be willing to give up security in numbers for improve-
ments in quality. In any event, the time lags involved in trying to per-
suade them to do so are likely to be substantial. Nevertheless, even
small changes add up over time. Since, as discussed below, the cumula-
tive effects could be quite substantial after some decades, policies that
might induce such shifts should not be ignored.
The Effect on Children's Subsequent Fertility
Here we can be somewhat more confident of finding a significant nega-
tive effect on fertility. First, there are a number of attitudinal changes
associated with the acquisition of education that are likely to reduce the
desire for a large number of offspring, independent of any effects in-
duced by changes in income and prices. Education, according to HoI-
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singer and Kasarda, increases exposure to appeals in the communica-
tions media aimed at encouraging family planning; increases aspirations
for upward mobility and the accumulation of wealth, making one less
interested in-or at least more desirous of postponing-the rearing of
a large family; imparts a sense of ability to control one's own life and
environment, thereby making family planning and the use of contracep-
tives appear less foreign; and encourages one to think about nontradi-
tional ways of living one's life.
Working in the opposite direction is the income or wealth effect of
education, which, independent of all other effects, makes it possible for
the better educated to afford large families. But as De Tray points out
in reviewing studies attempting to separate and measure the income
and relative-price effects, the latter are all negative and appear to be
sufficiently important quantitatively to offset the positive effects of in-
come on fertility. These relative-price or cost effects are thought to be
of the following types: education of women enhances opportunities for
employment that are competitive with having and rearing children,
thereby increasing the opportunity cost of children.. Education of both
parents tends to raise the educational norm that they are expected to
provide to their children, thereby raising the cost of child rearing. It
also seems to increase the capacity for effective use of contraceptive
devices and for communication between husband and wife about such
sensitive matters as family size and the use of contraceptives, thereby
lowering the effective cost of achieving a given family-size norm. Since
school and marriage are generally considered incompatible, the pro-
vision of more education tends to delay the age of marriage. Education
helps parents reduce child mortality, thereby lowering the number of
births required to achieve a given family-size norm and encouraging
investments in quality rather than quantity, as discussed below. Finally,
as a consequence of increased education, parents are more likely to be
able to take care of themselves in their old age, thereby needing chil-
dren for this purpose to a lesser extent.
As can be seen from the authors' valiant efforts to find quantitative
information on the magnitude of these effects, empirical data are scarce
and generally of poor quality. For example, as Holsinger and Kasarda
have pointed out, years of schooling completed, rather than school days
attended, is almost invariably used as a proxy for quantity of schooling,
even though there is likely to be a low correlation between the two, espe-
cially across country and regional observations. Nevertheless, it appears
likely that all these effects acting in concert could have a sizable effect
on the fertility behavior of those receiving additional schooling. The
time lag, of course, is quite long.
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Content Versus Quantity of Schooling
An additional difficulty with the work on education and fertility is the
nearly universal emphasis on quantity (however measured) as opposed
to content. This is the emphasis of the authors in this volume as it is of
other writers on the subject. De Tray mentions the importance of type
of education and curriculum only as a caveat, and Holsinger and
Kasarda delve into these issues only with respect to what has been
termed population education. As reasons foc not doing so to any
greater extent, they point to the dearth of research on the topic in de-
veloping countries and to the suggestions to be found in the few relevant
studies which do exist that quantity is more important than content.
For certain of the effects discussed above-for example, the baby-
sitting services provided, earnings forgone, and the postponement of
marriage while attending school-time spent in school is. clearly more
important. But it is difficult to believe that it is so--or that.-it. needs to
be so-with respect to any of the other effects that operate through
changes in attitude, self-perception, and the productivity of human capi-
tal. Negative findings about the effects of educational content in this
area are more likely to be explained by inadequate measuring devices,
lack of variation in content between schools, and the difficulty in link-
ing content imparted at one point in the life cycle to behavior in
another.
Two types of change in content have at times been suggested: the
introduction of population education and literacy programs. The first,
according to Holsinger and Kasarda, holds some promise, though it
has not yet been tried to any significant extent, but they find no indica-
tion that literacy per se-that is, apart from the general effects of more
schooling-has any significance. It can be argued that literacy makes
contraceptive information more accessible and enhances the status of
women, but it probably has to be part of a broader program the other
components of which are necessary for literacy to be useful.
Apart from such specific components of educational programs, a
number of more general changes in content could be considered, both
for their value in achieving other societal goals as well as for their
effects on fertility. It goes without saying that educational programs
could be geared more toward advancing the productivity of human
capital. Female labor-force participation could be fostered by setting
up specific programs and training schools for girls and more subtly by
portraying women in productive, nontraditional roles. The sense of
being able to control one's own life can be fostered by improving the
individual's problem-solving capacity (as opposed to emphasizing rote
 PERSAO F64&a Pit- NPdts6V6 ib'iJ1j6XC31,NAMPOBBOI 85RO002001000 -4
learning and memorization) and by projects emphasizing doing and
making and then observing the consequences (as opposed to passive
absorption of information). People can be encouraged to think about
nontraditional ways of living by learning about the variety of ways that
people in other cultures both within and beyond the borders of their
own country handle common human problems. These examples are
meant only as illustrations. More specific analyses are necessary to de-
termine appropriate interventions in given contexts. All we can do here
is point out that this is a neglected and difficult, but challenging and
potentially fruitful, area for further work.
School Attendance
While the problem of inducing parents to provide their children with
more and better education is discussed in both chapters on education,
we will give only brief space to it here, not because of its lack of
importance but because, once again, we cannot move far beyond gen-
eralities without digging deeply into specific cases.
Perhaps the principal need everywhere is for more and better facili-
ties and teachers, but given the budgetary constraints that exist in low-
income countries with rapidly growing populations, these deficits will
not be made up quickly. Under the circumstances, any additional re-
sources made available to the education sector must be allocated with
care. There was general agreement that highest priority should be
given to primary education in poor rural areas where birth rates are
highest. One objection to such an allocation policy is that it seems to
reward high fertility rates. While this is true in one sense, it is difficult
to believe that parents would decide to have more children in order to
influence the geographic distribution of educational facilities. Neverthe-
less, this objection could be eliminated and an immediate antinatalist
effect introduced by allocating facilities within this high-priority area on
a conditional or incentive basis-that is, to those rural villages meeting
certain family-planning targets.
But lack of facilities is not the only problem. One important indica-
tion of this is the observation that available facilities are frequently
underutilized. There are four possible ways to ameliorate this situation.
The first, compulsory attendance laws, can be set aside as unworkable.
The second, subsidies or monetary incentives for attendance, does not
seem promising in view of budgetary stringencies, plus the possibility of
a significant positive income effect on fertility in poor areas. Here again,
however, these problems could be overcome in large measure by pro-
viding the subsidy as- an incentive, given only to those families with
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14 PIIP iT ATTf)N ANr) TDEVELOPMEN
fewer than a certain number of children, as is being tried experimentally
in Taiwan (Finnegan and Sun 1972, Wang and Chen 1973). A third
possibility is to improve the quality of the education provided and in-
crease its relevance to the individual's daily life. A peasant has little
incentive to keep his child in school if he believes that the child is not
receiving much of value. But there is another way to enhance the value
of education, namely, to change the environment in ways that increase
the need for education. An education is of little value to a girl who will
never take a job; even literacy is of little value unless there is some
need to read. In a broad sense, urbanization and industrialization serve
this purpose. So do reductions in infant and child mortality since, as
discussed below, they have the effect of increasing the rate of return on
investments in human. capital. But it may be possible to affect the situa-
tion in more specific, deliberate ways. Suppose, for example, that jobs
in the education and health sectors requiring a certain number of years
of schooling were made available to girls. Such a change could make
the difference between sending and not sending a daughter to school.
Undoubtedly other possibilities for specific interventions of this type
can be found. The principal point, however, is that one must look out-
side as well as inside the education sector to find ways of inducing par-
ents to provide more education for their children.
Unfortunately, there is little or no evidence available to support all
these presumptions and suggestions. As indicated at the outset, while
we know that educational attainment is strongly correlated, inversely,
with family size, we know precious little more; this information is of
little help in formulating policies within this sector. All the suggestions
made above, therefore, should be taken as hypotheses to be tested, and
research priorities in this area should be developed accordingly.
Mortality, Morbidity, and Nutrition
It is frequently alleged that a fall in child death rates and better health
and nutrition are necessary preconditions for a fall in fertility.? Cross-
country and historical. evidence tend to support this proposition. But
what role do these health-related factors play independent of changes in
income, education, and social structure? How much effect can policies
aimed at reducing mortality and morbidity and improving nutrition
levels be expected to have on fertility, and with what time lags?
It is clear that pure biological linkages cannot explain the positive
correlation between morbidity and mortality on the one side and fer-
tility on the other. They might even suggest the opposite, that improve-
r On the relation with nutrition, a somewhat less well-known argument, see
Berg (1973).
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merits in health, while not directly increasing the number of births, clo
increase the capacity to have more children. There is good evidence
that raising the nutrition level of females results in earlier menarche,
later menopause, and shorter periods of postpartum amenorrhea in
nursing mothers. The linkage between male fertility and morbidity
probably works in the same direction, although William P. Butz did
not find any evidence to this effect. Reductions in adult mortality, be-
cause they decrease the number of widows and widowers of reproduc-
tive ages, also increase the. potential for more births. Only reductions in
deaths among nursing infants point in the opposite direction, since the
period of lactation and postpartum amenorrhea are thereby made
longer; but the contraceptive effect of this change is far from sufficient
to account for the observed declines in birth rates as infant death rates
have fallen. Another biological linkage is that between lower birth rates
and improvements in health, both for the mother and her children.
While this direction of causation also helps explain the positive correla-
tion found in cross-sectional studies, our emphasis here is on causal
linkages running in the opposite direction that might be useful for
policy making. If the correlation between morbidity, mortality, and fer-
tility is to be explained, one must look for behavioral changes. Four in
particular have been emphasized in the literature reviewed by Butz and
Jean-Pierre Habicht and by T. Paul Schultz.
First, setting aside responses to uncertainty for the moment, a. de-
cline in child mortality can be expected to increase desired family size,
since the expected cost of rearing a survivor is thereby reduced and the
benefits increased. An improvement in general health would work in
the same direction.
Second, a decline in child mortality means that fewer births are re-
quired to achieve a given number of survivors. Schultz shows that,
given plausible assumptions about response elasticities, the net effect
of these first two factors is to reduce births. But this decline in births is
unlikely to be sufficient to offset the increase in population growth
resulting from the decline in mortality unless additional behavioral fac-
tors are brought into play.
One such additional factor is the response of parents to uncertainty.
A plausible response is overcompensation: parents may well prefer to
have too many rather than too few surviving children. If this is the case,
a reduction in child mortality, which is generally accompanied by a
reduction in uncertainty as well, would reduce births by somewhat
more than is implied by the first two factors alone.
Fourth, and perhaps most important, improvements in the rates of
mortality and morbidity and in nutrition at all ages increase the returns
on investments in human capital in relation to investments in nonhuman
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18 POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT
capital and on investments with long gestation periods in relation to
those with shorter ones. These effects should encourage parents to
invest more in both their own and their children's education and health
and make them willing to have fewer children in order to finance such
expenditures. They could also make it somewhat more attractive to
postpone marriage to the extent that marriage and early child rearing
are incompatible with investments in education.
Other possible effects mentioned by these authors include the need to
save more for old age and a more rapid rate of increase in family
income and wealth in the course of time. These conditions might also
reduce fertility, the former because it increases the need to conserve on
current consumption and the latter because it is akin to Simon's long
run effects of income (in this case increasing child-expenditure norms,
thereby inducing an even greater shift from quantity to quality).
While all these effects are plausible and more or less consistent with
the evidence, there is very little information on their quantitative maD
nitude and none that adequately separates the various effects and lines
of causation, including the biological, from each other. It is typical in
less developed countries to find that the decline in child death rates
precedes the decline in birth rates by at least a decade and that the
decline in the latter compensates for less than the total decline in the
former, leaving family size and the growth rate of population somewhat
larger. But the variance around this average is sizable-Schultz, for
example, finding that in about half the studies he reviewed response
rates in excess of unity are implied-and an explanation for these dif-
ferences is lacking. One cannot go further than this with the data,
virtually all of which are cross-sectional, and methods available at
present. With these difficulties in mind, Schultz and Butz and Habicht
devote considerable space to the development of theoretical models for
statistical analysis that define what data are necessary and how they
should be utilized.
At one level the policy implications of these authors' materials are
relatively straightforward. It seems reasonably certain that improve-
ments in medical and health care will eventually encourage some
decline in fertility. Beyond this statement, however, lie many unan-
swered questions, particularly concerning the extent and speed of the
decline, the resulting effect on the population growth rate, and the over-
all cost-effectiveness of alternative methods of improving medical and
health care. The authors address these questions only peripherally, Butz
and Habicht reviewing the reasons for integrating health, nutrition, and
family-planning services and Schultz surveying the reasons for the
decline in mortality in less developed countries and concluding that
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future declines will depend more heavily on improvements in general
economic conditions for the mass of the population.
The last issue is a particularly interesting one because it seems to
lead us full circle back to the need for general economic development.
It has two principal bases: First, there are studies indicating that
declines in mortality in less developed countries have not occurred
independent of economic development, as has often been suggested,
and second, there is the argument that the major remaining causes of
child mortality are gastroenteritis and diarrheal diseases associated with
nutritional deficiencies, diseases that have resisted the efforts of medical
researchers and appear to be related primarily to the level of private
physical wealth and educational attainment. These judgments may be
somewhat harsh. First, studies indicating the extent to which general
economic development is associated with declines in mortality typically
fail to hold constant investments in public health facilities such as. pot-
able water, sewage, and sanitation works that could be, and sometimes
are, made independently. Second, diarrheal diseases are associated with
contaminated water and with habits of personal hygiene; public health
investments in providing potable water and sanitary waste-disposal
systems in rural areas, plus education campaigns directed specifically at
this problem, should have a high rate of return independent of general
advances in economic welfare." Here as in other areas there appear to be
possibilities of finding specific interventions that might make it unneces-
sary to wait for general economic development.
Female Roles and Labor-force Participation
The next two chapters, those by Ruth B. Dixon and by James L.
McCabe and Mark R. Rosenzweig, while different in subject matter
and especially in methodology, conclude with similar implications for
policy and research. Dixon, a sociologist, argues that high fertility rates
81t is sometimes alleged that such investments are so expensive that general
economic development is necessary to create the surpluses required for the task.
In large part, the level of expense arises from the assumption that international
standards and capital-intensive methods of treatment will be used. But recent
research by Richard Frankel has demonstrated that high levels of treatment can
be obtained using inexpensive local materials for the filtration medium (for
example, shredded cocoanut husks) and storage (ceramic crocks) and transport
(bamboo). By obviating the need for chemicals, cast metal parts, and machinery,
he has brought the cost down to a small fraction of what western treatment
facilities require, significantly reducing the dependence on foreign assistance or
general economic development (see Frankel 1973).
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in many developing countries are related importantly to the social and
economic roles assigned to women and that the best way to change this
situation is through changes in female employment. McCabe and
Rosenzweig take an econometric approach, questioning the extent to
which changes in female wages and job opportunities do in fact lead
to changes in fertility. Since in the end both recommend experiments
involving the manipulation of the female labor market, they are most
conveniently discussed together at this point.
Women in a large number of developing countries, and especially in
the rural sectors of these countries, are described by Dixon as power-
less, economically and socially dependent, and isolated from the main-
stream of life outside the immediate family circle. In Moslem societies,
on which she concentrates, this situation is related to the practice of
female seclusion, typically justified as an assurance of chastity before
marriage and faithfulness thereafter. Among other things, it leads to
limitations on economic activities outside the home. This makes daugh-
ters a greater economic burden on their parents, resulting in their
receiving less education and leaving Ahern with fewer ways to attain
status and security besides early marriage and the production of chil-
dren. While arising for different reasons and in different guises in non-
Moslem societies, the more general features of this situation are not
unfamiliar in large parts of Latin America and Africa.
The possibility that provision of better wages and jobs for women
outside the home could change this situation and lead to a decline in
fertility arises for two reasons: The roles of worker and mother tend
to be incompatible, and a job and an independent source of earnings
may give a woman a greater voice in family decision making.
The first factor has been stated most rigorously by economists in the
following way: an increase in the wife's market wage rate will have two
economic effects. First, it will increase household income, making it
possible for the couple to afford a larger family. Second, it will increase
the opportunity cost of the wife's time spent in nonmarket activities,
inducing her to reallocate her time in favor of market activities. If child
rearing is more time-intensive for the wife than are other nonmarket
activities, the opportunity cost for children will increase by more than
will that for other demands on her time, encouraging a decrease in
desired family size. While the net effect of these offsetting tendencies
cannot be judged entirely by reasoning a priori, studies in developed
countries indicating a negative relationship between female work hours
and fertility have led to a general presumption that the second effect,
the substitution or price effect, tends to outweigh the income effect. But
studies in less developed countries have not always indicated a negative
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McCabe and Rosenzweig obtain strong positive associations between
female wages and fertility. While this finding may be explained by the
unconventional way they have specified their statistical models fnr test_
developed countries to the conditions of less developed countries.
There are several reasons that a positive relationship between female
labor-force participation and fertility may occur in developing coun-
tries. First, the income effect could be much stronger at low levels of
income. Indeed, it was argued by one of the discussants that poverty
forces many women into the labor market even when it means a reduc-
tion in the quality of the care their children get; this is equivalent to
saying that, for these women, an increase in their wages could well per-
mit them to work less, increasing the amount of time they would have
available to bear and rear children. Second, large families and extended
families make it easier to find substitutes for the mother's time in child
rearing. Finally, the jobs set aside for women in developing countries
often permit caring for children while working, or at least they make
the two roles less incompatible than they tend to be in industrial coun-
tries. These last two factors are stressed by McCabe and Rosenzweig,
who feel that they could even be strong enough to lead to a positive
substitution effect; whether that is true or not, however, they certainly
lead to a reduction in the magnitude of the negative effect. Role incom-
patibility, therefore, cannot automatically be assumed in conditions pre-
vailing in developing countries. To ensure a negative effect on fertility,
the additional jobs provided for women must be deliberately chosen or
designed to be for the most part incompatible with child rearing.
The second factor presumed to lead to a decline in fertilit
the ' 1
y,
greater voice in family decision making resulting from a job, is stressed ii
by Dixon. There can be little doubt that girls with an independent
source of income are in a better position to resist pressures to marry j
than are those without jobs. Moreover, evidence suggests that there is
a positive correlation between the extent of the wife's involvement in
family decision making and use of contraceptives. But once again,
whether the provision of jobs per se under conditions prevailing in
poor rural areas would he sufficient to encourage a greater role in
decision making, and whether that in turn-independent of other
changes-would lead to a decline in fertility, is open to question. It is
more likely that a number of changes together-the provision of cer-
tain kinds of jobs and conditions of employment and pay, possibly com-
bined with a self-help organization to provide educational, legal, and
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22 POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT
psychological support-would be required for a significant, sustained
effect to be observed. A good deal of Dixon's chapter is devoted to the
search for the appropriate set of changes.
The authors appear to recognize these problems and try to take them
into account in their proposals for both research and policy. This is
particularly true of Dixon, whose carefully worked-out suggestions are
centered around the establishment of rural industrial cooperatives em-
ploying only women. Her suggestions, as well as those of Aziz Bindary
(1975) and others, to establish special workshops or industries for
women, are attractive in many ways. At the very least a specific num-
ber of jobs will in fact be created. But several arguments can be raised
against this approach. First, all such proposals involving the develop-
ment of new institutions and special projects are difficult to establish,
replicate, and operate on a large scale, and the history of efforts to do
so (to develop rural producer cooperatives, for example) provides few
success stories. Second, investments in such special projects are often
expensive on a per-person basis and could run counter to the goal of
maximizing total output. Third, such efforts may fail if the male unem-
ployment rate is too high, because men will either preempt the jobs
or demand that the investments be made in directions more directly
useful to them. If the projects are conceived as self-financing and
involve work in areas where women have a comparative advantage
(whether it be natural or culturally imposed), the last two points may
be less important. A case in point is provided by recent investments in
electronic assembly plants in Malaysia in which most of those employed
are women despite high urban male unemployment rates. But such
opportunities are likely to be difficult to find on a large scale.
These problems with the special project approach have led some to
argue that it is more effective to concentrate efforts on reducing the
general unemployment rate (through across-the-board policies such as
increasing the artificially low price of capital in relation to labor) and
allowing the demand for female labor to increase as a natural conse-
quence. Such a trickle-down approach seems to account in part for the
increase in female. employment in Pakistan, where, according to one
commentator, women began to be employed in traditionally male jobs
when better-paying jobs for men opened up elsewhere. But there are
problems with an exclusive reliance on this approach as well. The
immediate impact of such policies could well be pronatalist since they
imply an increase in male earnings before female employment increases.
Indeed, it could even result in some reduction in the supply of female
labor as women, no longer forced by poverty into the labor market,
withdrew to devote more time to child rearing. Moreover, while it is
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true that s ecia projects are 1 cult to set up on a large scale, it has
proved equally difficult to reduce general unemployment rates. To do
so often requires a correction of factor-price distortions and an increase
in the general rate of economic growth, and there have been few suc-
cess stories here also. But most important, such across-the-board efforts
to increase the demand for female labor do not provide the package
of changes that Dixon suggests is necessary to obtain a commensurate
increase in the supply of female labor.
Fortunately, however, these two approaches are not mutually exclu-
sive. While everything should be done to lower the general unemploy-
ment rate, there is no need to wait until it is reduced to acceptable
levels to begin experimenting with different institutional forms and
interventions in the female labor market. Such experimentation will be
needed in any case and can proceed on a sufficiently small scale so that
it does not threaten. male employment. It is only when some success has
been achieved and attempts are made to expand the scale of operations
that a conflict between these two approaches may arise. We are far from
that point now.
PERSPECTIVES ONJ POPULATION POLICY AND RESEARCH 23
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Up to this point the possibilities of influencing preferences, or tastes,
in relation to fertility have been discussed only in passing-that is, as
they might be affected incidentally or indirectly through other variables.
Now we want to consider such possibilities more explicitly. While very
little in the way of a theory of taste formation i's available, it seems
plausible that preferences can be influenced in the following three
ways. First, education might directly or indirectly alter tastes-directly
by inculcation of new attitudes and indirectly by helping to place a
person in a new socioeconomic or occupational reference group with
different fertility norms. Second, a person's desire for goods and serv-
ices, in competition with bearing and rearing children, might be stimu-
lated by mass media, advertising,. or the increased supply of attractive
consumer goods. Third, a person's norms regarding appropriate age of
marriage and family size can change as a consequence of exposure to
different life-styles. Such exposure can occur through direct contact
with new acquaintances, often as a result of migration, or less directly
through mass media (and education) in which different life-styles and
different ways of handling common problems are portrayed. We have
already discussed education and its possible effects on tastes. Here we
consider the second and third possibilities.
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Deborah S. Freedman reviews the literature and evidence pertaining
to possibilities involving the use of mass media and modern consump-
tion goods in her chapter. Apparently, no evidence exists that mass-
media programs aimed directly at promoting family planning increase
rates of acceptance or change basic attitudes about family-size norms;
the best that can be said for them is that they increase awareness, infor-
mation, and willingness to listen to other appeals. There are serious
methodological problems involved in trying to judge the indirect effects
of mass media, and data are very scarce. From what little there are,
however-in particular an extensive survey of Taiwanese husbands-
Freedman finds evidence indicating that even after eliminating the
effects of income, education, literacy, and ownership of modern objects,
increased exposure to mass media is associated with increased use of
contraceptives, higher consumption aspirations, lessened fears of child
mortality, increased awareness of the financial costs of children, and
so on. The effects are small, but not much smaller than those of such
variables as education and income. She also finds from the same data
that both aspirations for and ownership of modern consumer durables
are associated with the use of contraceptives, other things being held
constant.
From these findings; she concludes with three interesting suggestions
for research. The first is to make television available to inhabitants of
rural and urban sample sites and compare the inhabitants' behavioral
and attitudinal responses over a five-year period with those of inhabi-
tants of control sites (making family-planning services equally accessible
to both groups). The second is a survey to determine what are modern
consumption items in a given context, who buys them, whether their
ownership is in fact competitive with having children, how work effort
and savings are affected, and the extent to which marketing and pro-
duction activities are found in communities with high levels of owner-
ship, adjusting for the effects of income. If the second study shows a
potential market for modern consumer goods, a favorable fertility
impact, and no offsetting negative impacts (on work effort or savings,
for example), a third study would be recommended: an experiment
involving subsidies for the marketing or production, or both, of certain
kinds of goods in sample areas. While her suggestions for field experi-
ments would have to be worked out in much more detail, Freedman
goes far enough to indicate that they are likely to be feasible.
An objection to these proposals can be raised on grounds that
they might encourage socially unacceptable cultural values, in particu-
lar the consumption of luxury goods at the expense of investment in
essential commodities. This objection can be answered on a number
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of levels. First, mass media can carry any message desired: it is not
necessary that they encourage profligate styles of living. Second, the
package of goods that constitutes an appropriate set of "modem con-
sumption goods" is not the same everywhere; it will vary greatly
depending on the specific cultural and economic context being con-
sidered. In poor peasant societies, it is more likely to include sewing
machines, bicycles, power pumps, water taps, tubing for wells, and
improved farm implements rather than phonographs, air conditioners,
and aids to personal beauty. Third, one should not automatically
assume that the consumption of such goods is always a deterrent to
savings. Freedman's Taiwan data suggest that both aspirations for and
ownership of what are appropriately defined as modern consumption
goods in that context are positively correlated with savings, with
income, education, and duration of marriage held constant. But finally,
a good many of her research suggestions are designed specifically to
determine whether there would be any negative effects from the-policy
suggestions she proposes investigating. Especially in this area, where
data are so poor and where policies must be designed within the spe-
cifics of a given setting, such fact-finding research is an obvious first step.
David Goldberg's chapter raises another possibility for population
policy, one that has been largely overlooked. From sample surveys that
include information on respondents' residential locations within two
metropolitan areas, Ankara and Mexico City, he finds that a significant
proportion of fertility-related behavior is explained by residential- loca-
tion, over and above the effects of respondents' income, education, and
place of birth. It is not possible to determine from his data whether
this association is the result of a self-selection process-persons with
similar attitudes tending to live in the same area--or whether people
tend to take on the characteristics of those around them. Most likely,
as Goldberg suggests, both effects are present, but to the extent that
the second explanation is correct an appealing possibility for influenc-
ing fertility patterns presents itself.
Within limits the settlement patterns of rural migrants in urban areas
can be influenced by public policy. The layout of vehicular access
roads, sewage lines, and piped water are important determinants of
the attractiveness of given locations. So too are renewal, rehabilitation,
and public housing programs. To a large extent, this influence is nega-
tive, the poor migrant locating in areas where urban infrastructure and
rehabilitation programs are not present, since only there are land
values likely to be low enough for him. This fact tends to make migrants
cluster together in urban slum areas, where many rural attitudes and
behavior patterns are reinforced. If planners were to locate urban
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26 POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT
infrastructure and renewal programs in such a way as to encourage
small rather than large migrant clusters and to encourage less segrega-
tion between older and newer migrants, perhaps the new migrants
would become urbanized-and in the process give up their high fertility
patterns-more rapidly.
At this stage, these ideas, plus the likelihood of their being politi-
cally feasible, must be presented in a very tentative way. But given the
data presented by Goldberg, the possibilities appear sufficiently promis-
ing that further testing and exploration are warranted. He suggests a
number of ways in which this might be done, including extensions of
the techniques used in his Ankara and Mexico City studies and careful
monitoring of experiments or quasi experiments already under way.
Rapidly growing cities, where significant locational decisions will have
to be made in the next few years in any case, are attractive candidates.
Overall Research Implications
The individual chapters in this volume are too rich in research sugges-
tions for summarization here. There are, however, two broad issues
that can be usefully raised at this point. One is the problem of specify-
ing statistical models for testing and the other the pros and cons of
social experimentation as a technique of data collection.
Insights into the determinants of fertility and policies for influencing
them can come from many sources, including personal observation, a
priori reasoning, and-perhaps most promising but least utilized to
date-the application of anthropological methods. But in the last
analysis, hypotheses so derived must be tested by means of statistical
techniques. To do this properly is no easy task. A large number of
variables influence decisions involving marriage and procreation. These
variables are linked together in complex ways, since some are simultane-
ously determined and many are explanatory in one relationship and
dependent in another. Often these variables move together over time
making it difficult to isolate their independent effects. Time lags of
unknown length are involved in many of the relationships. Measure-
ment of these variables is often indirect, using proxies for what is
really desired. And there are reasons to believe that some of the rela-
tionships are temporally and spatially unstable. While there is no single
best way to cope with this situation, it helps enormously if the unit
of observation is the individual decision maker, rather than some
average across a geographic region, if these persons can be followed
over a period of time rather than being interviewed only once, and if
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at least some variables can be held constant while others are manipu-
lated specifically, as it might be possible to do in a field experiment
(or in a quasi-experimental setting in which a new policy is being
introduced in part of the universe to be studied), or where the size of
the sample is sufficiently large that it can be partitioned into homo-
geneous groups. If the data are of this quality, it then pays to utilize
sophisticated statistical methods, often involving, for example, simul-
taneous equations, as opposed to single-equation techniques, even if
the latter are multivariate in nature. It is almost never the case that all
these conditions are fulfilled. Usually researchers must pick up data
collected for other purposes when and where they can, data that are
often not suitable for careful and elaborate statistical analysis. The
resulting studies must be interpreted with considerable caution to avoid
incorrect or misleading implications.
While several of the chapters in this volume exemplify problems of
this type, the empirical portion of the chapter by McCabe and Rosen-
zweig is especially useful to illustrate some of these points. To obtain
an indication of the likely effect of wage subsidy for women workers
on female labor-force participation and on completed family size, they
set up a series of regression equations utilizing data from the Puerto
Rican census for 3,000 married women between the ages of thirty-five
and forty-four with spouses present. In one of these equations, children
ever born is the dependent variable and the wife's potential wage, her
age and education level, the husband's education and wages, and the
nonlabor incomes of both are the independent variables. In another
equation, hours worked is the dependent variable, and the set of inde-
pendent variables is the same. The results indicate that women with
higher potential wages work more hours and have a Iarger number of
children. Should we conclude that in Puerto Rico, at least, a wage
subsidy would be pronatalist?
Before drawing any such conclusion, one must look further into the
methods used by these authors, particularly at their concept of potential
wages. They argue, quite rightly, that the wages actually received by
the women in the sample are affected by the numbers of children they
have: the more children the less work experience and seniority they
have and hence the lower their wages. What is needed is an indication
of the wages a woman could have received if this effect of children on
wages were not present. To obtain such an indication in the absence
of work histories, the authors introduce a new variable-potential wage,
which is derived from a subsidiary regression equation on unmarried
women between the ages of eighteen and forty-four-in which wages are
the dependent variable and age and education are the independent
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28 POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT
variables. By substituting this new variable, the authors are in effect
saying that married women would have received the same wage as do
unmarried women of the same ages and with the same education had
they not married-that is, that there are no other differences between
them. Since the waves offered to married women can be expected to
move in the same way as potential wages, movements in the latter can
serve as a good proxy for what is really wanted, the effect of an
exogenous change in wages without the feedback effects of indepen-
dent changes in fertility.
Apart from other questions that can be raised about this procedure,'
the validity of this interpretation depends on what is assumed about
self-selection. To what extent do women marry and have more chil-
dren over their lifetimes because their market opportunities are re-
stricted, and to what extent do preferences for marriage and children
determine whether women enter the labor market and, if they do, what
conditions of work they will accept? Indeed, it can be argued, as did
one commentator on this chapter, that the difference between potential
and actual wage (roughly equivalent to income forgone) is a proxy
for tastes or preferences for children, in which case a positive co-
efficient is to be expected, since such a coefficient merely says that
women with higher preferences for children have more children.16
Because of the absence of work histories, there is no way to obtain
a good answer to these questions from McCabe and Rosenzweig's data.
Their finding is useful, therefore, mainly as a warning that an across-
the-board wage subsidy may not always work and that it may be neces-
sary to apply such a policy to a limited range of jobs, those that are
more clearly competitive with child rearing. It cannot be used, as the
authors acknowledge, as firm evidence to argue against experiments
with or .trials of such policies. McCabe and Rosenzweig go on to
analyze data from a cross section of countries in which an attempt is
made to look at the effect of jobs with different characteristics (degree
of compatibility with child rearing) and which supports the hypothesis
that the type of job is important. Another set of problems and doubts
can be raised about this analysis, however, in particular the lack of
adequate wage data.
9 Why use women between the ages of thirty-five and forty-four, many of
whom have not yet completed their reproductive period; why compare them with
women between eighteen and forty-four; and why include some of the deter-
minants of wages in the same equation as wages itself? The authors have answers
for these questions, some of which are included in their chapter.
10 In the version of the paper appearing in this book, the authors test this
hypothesis and conclude by rejecting it.
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This discussion leads directly into the question of social experimen-
tation, for in the last analysis it is difficult to believe that any body
of nonexperimental data, no matter how good, can provide answers
acceptable to policy makers about the long-run. quantitative effect on
fertility of specific policies to improve labor-market conditions for
women. Can social experiments provide the data necessary to obtain
more useful answers?
There is much to be said for social experimentation as a research
tool for studying population policy. First, if the changes that policy is
designed to bring about have never been experienced before, non-
experimental data obviously cannot be very helpful. The effects of an
increase in wages beyond the range previously experienced, an incentive
never before offered, and a new housing policy are cases in point.
Second, if it is possible to assign a large number of treatment and
control areas on a random basis, it is not necessary to know as much
about all the variables that could influence the situation as it is if non-
experimental data are used. While an ideal situation is seldom found
in practice, the closer it can be approximated the more confidence one
can have in the results of testing simple or partial models. Third, social
experimentation can turn up unexpected side effects that might be
important in deciding whether to implement a policy. Even if it is
known that women will have fewer children if job opportunities become
available to them, policy makers will also want to know what the effects
will be on male labor markets and attitudes. Finally, whether they
deserve to be or not, analyses derived from social experiments are
more easily understood by policy makers than are those derived from
the manipulation of nonexperimental data. The former are more like
trial pins, whereas the latter, at best, can only simulate the situation
and then only under a number of limiting assumptions.
But social experimentation has its problems as well. It is a more
costly way of acquiring information (that is, assuming that the non-
informational benefits-the births prevented by the experiment and
the additional quality of information obtained, for example-are not
subtracted from the costs, as they should he). It may be unacceptable
on political or ethical grounds because treatment and control groups
must be treated differently. It may be difficult to avoid "contamina-
tion"-that is, spillover effects between treatment and control groups
that distort the outcome. [It is of interest to note that neither of these
last two problems proved to be serious in the large-scale experiments
involving the negative income tax conducted in the United States
between 1968 and 1972 (Kershaw and Fair 1975, Kershaw 1972).
Such problems could be serious in other contexts, however.] It is often
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30 POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT
impossible in practice to set up and monitor more than one or two
treatment and control groups, although the classic experimental design
calls for a large number spread at random through the population.
The seriousness of this failing depends on the nature of the information
one wishes to obtain and on the alternatives available (in particular
on the weaknesses likely to be present in nonexperimental data con-
cerning the same phenomenon). Finally, to obtain useful information,
it may be necessary to run a fertility experiment for a long time, longer
than is feasible (although, of course, no longer than is necessary to
obtain useful nonexperimental time-series data).
Clearly, there is a need for both experimental and nonexperimental
studies. But, when all is said and done, neither method is likely to pro-
vide adequate answers to some questions within a reasonable period of
time. To illustrate the latter conclusion, consider the problem of deter-
mining the effect of different educational programs on completed family
size. The problem of following the recipients through a number of years
and eliminating the effects of other influences along the way places an
almost insuperable burden on any method of gathering data. In such
cases decisions about policy will have to be made a priori. If the policy
appears reasonable and has other more general advantages-is bene-
ficial for general economic development, for example---it would be best
to proceed directly to implementation without trying first. to reduce
uncertainty through additional research. The suggestions made by Muel-
ler to improve access by rural families to lending and savings institu-
tions are a case in point. Research may never adequately prove that
such a change is useful in reducing births, even though it is reasonable
to believe that it does have that effect. In view of the seriousness of the
population problem in many developing countries, moreover, it makes
no sense to demand a greater degree of certainty in this area than is
present in others in which policy makers are forced to proceed with-
out any stronger factual underpinning.
Some Broader Policy Implications
It is now time to take up several policy issues that cut across all aspects
of the subject under study. The first issue is that of incentives-that is,
changes that are conditional upon a favorable change in fertility-related
behavior. While Simon, in his chapter on income, is the principal author
to discuss them, incentives could as well be considered in conjunction
with education, public health, housing, or the provision of employment
opportunities for women. The second issue is the need for a group of
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closely related and mutually reinforcing changes. Finally, we must con-
sider the question of priorities: given all the possibilities we have sur-
veyed,
can we say anything about which is likely to have the highest
benefit-cost ratio, defining benefits and costs to include more than just
the economic magnitudes involved?
A wide variety of incentives has been suggested and a number are being
tried. They can be positive (payments for acceptance of a vasectomy,
for example, as in India) or negative (increased hospital and maternity
fees and lower priority for public housing for parents with larger fam-
ilies, for example, as in Singapore). The incentive can be provided to
the couple themselves (the only kind to be discussed here), to "moti-
vators," or to the community at large (funds for public works projects
dependent on achievement by a village of certain targets, for example,.
as once proposed for use in Maharashtra). They can be provided for
changes in behavior ranging from the use of a particular method of
family planning, changes in the age of marriage, increased spacing, or
smaller completed family size. They can involve transfers of cash, goods,
or services (the Taiwan education bond and the Pakistan proposal to
offer life insurance for the oldest son, for example). Such transfers can
be immediate or deferred (as in the case of the tea-estate experiment in
India, in which payment at the time of retirement varies inversely with
the number of children). While evidence on the effects of such
schemes is sparse at present, it is likely to improve substantially in the
next few years as the schemes under way mature to the point at which
evaluation becomes feasible."
Whatever their nature, there are five principal arguments in favor of
incentives. First, they are known to work in other fields. Price incentives
to induce farmers to shift to new varieties and differential tax rates to
encourage investments in some fields and discourage investments in
others are cases in point. Second, the conditional nature of the offer is
useful in overcoming the positive income effect associated with many
social changes. In addition this factor reduces the social cost and risk
involved in policy changes that would otherwise be difficult to reverse
if the expected fertility effect is not forthcoming. These last two points
can be explained by reference to an old-age security scheme: if the
pension varied inversely with the number of children a couple had, the
1i For a description of these schemes, plus discussion of their pros and cons,
see Pohlman (1971), Hickman (1972), IBRD (1974, ch. 6)? and works cited in
these publications and in chapter 2 of this volume.
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pronatalist effect of the higher lifetime income would be counteracted,
and the scheme could be set up in such a way that no pensions would
be provided unless fertility actually fell. Fourth, incentives can help to
overcome the time lags inherent in many forms of social change. The
principal effect of providing additional schooling to rural youths is
likely to be felt only after they become adults, but if this schooling were
offered on the condition that their parents limited family size, at least
some of the effect would be shifted to the present generation.
Finally, and most important, the use of incentives obviates the need
for knowing in detail the nature and strength of the principal determi-
nants of fertility. Incentives should work so long as something consid-
ered to be of value by the recipient is provided, whether or not it
compensates him in kind for the loss he incurs from having fewer
children. It is likely to be more socially acceptable if it does provide
such a compensation; but it is the perceived, not the real, value of
children that counts in gaining such acceptability and that is easier to
discover through research.
This point can be pushed further by considering the three main
views held about the general nature of the population problem in less
developed countries. Some argue that people want to limit fertility
but do not have effective means. Others assert that individuals have
reason to limit fertility but are not sufficiently motivated because of lack
of knowledge and the persistence of old attitudes and values. Still others
argue that given the present environment within which parents in less
developed countries live, they do not have good reason to lower their
fertility and cannot be motivated to do so in the absence of substantial
social, economic, or political change. Incentives can be effective no
matter which of these explanations is correct. If the first is correct, the
incentive will induce people to find effective methods or demand that
they be given them. If the second proves to be correct, the incentive
will help speed up the adjustment process, just as high "incentive"
prices for food grains in India and Pakistan in 1967-68 increased the
rate of adoption of the new hybrid seeds. If the third explanation is
correct, the incentive serves as a substitute for the social change that
has not yet occurred. At a minimum it will change behavior without
affecting attitudes in any fundamental way, but given normal dynamics
of attitude formation, changes in attitude will follow the changed be-
havior in order to justify and rationalize the latter, thereby reinforcing
the behavioral change.
There are, of course, a number of arguments on the other side. If
used by itself, the incentive may have to be quite large, causing bud-
etary and possibly also political problems. In any event, some types of
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incentives may be considered distasteful, despite the fact that they are
openly and blatantly used in other walks of life. Third, implementation
of incentive programs sometimes poses difficult administrative problems,
among which are possibilities for the misuse of funds. Fourth, a number
of persons might receive payments who would have behaved as they did
in any rase; where such a problem exists, special efforts must be made
in the design of the scheme to minimize this consequence. -
Whatever stand one may take with respect to incentives, they do
appear to be an excellent instrument for social experimentation. Indeed,
the doubts and questions about incentives can probably not be an-
swered otherwise. How else, for example, can one determine how large
the incentive must be or whether the administrative problems can be
solved and whether favorable or unfavorable changes in attitudes are
likely to occur as a result of their use?
A Package Approach
Up to this point we have considered policy possibilities one at a time,
as if they were alternatives. This was done for convenience in discus-
sion and presentation, even though we know that a group of closely
related and mutually reinforcing changes are likely to be much more
effective than a piecemeal approach. An incentive for girls to postpone
marriage will be far more effective if combined with increased oppor-
tunities for them to use their time constructively. The provision of in-
creased educational .opportunities may not be taken advantage of unless
it is clear that the education is useful and needed and that it opens up
additional job opportunities. Mass media may stimulate the desire for
a higher standard of living, but the result will be frustration unless op-
portunities are provided for improving the standard of living.
This point can be carried further. To induce parents to value "qual-
ity" over "quantity" will require opportunities to increase lifetime in-
come, better training to take advantage. of these opportunities, reduced
mortality to increase the expected returns from long-term investments,
and, quite possibly, some kind of community or peer-group support to
encourage the individual to. break with tradition and bear the uncer-
tainties involved in a new approach to lifetime planning.
The situation is similar to that encountered in efforts to modernize
traditional agriculture, in which planners have concluded after many
frustrating years of effort that there is no single touchstone, that it is not
sufficient to provide extension services or new credit institutions, better
marketing and storage facilities, adequate supplies of new seeds, fer-
tilizer, and water, or even land reform and consolidation, separately,
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that some combination of these incentives plus adequate prices appears
necessary to break traditional patterns. But agricultural planners have
also discovered that it is easy to overload local officials and the production
capabilities of complementary sectors. The problem is to choose just the
right set of changes, sufficient to induce the proper behavioral response
yet not so comprehensive as to be infeasible. In the last analysis the de-
termination of the appropriate package probably involves more art and
intuition than it does science. And so it is and must be in the planning of population policy. We can say that a package of changes is necessary
and identify some of its ingredients; we can warn planners not to over-
load the system; but the right balance and mixture cannot be specified
without adding to the studies reviewed in this volume a large measure
of intuition and judgment about specific local circumstances.
Toward a Priority List
After this review it should be clear that it is impossible to provide any-
thing like a ranking of the various approaches to population policy
according to their likely benefit-cost ratios. Educated guesses could be
useful if additional information about specific countries were added but
are of little value at a more general level. A first step in this direction
can be taken, however, by considering the appropriateness of broad
classes of policy options depending on the seriousness of the population
problem in different countries.
In all cases, of course, countries should start with vigorous programs
of family planning. In countries that do not anticipate any serious prob-
lems associated with population growth, such a supply-oriented ap-
proach may be sufficient. But if population pressure is expected to be
severe in the future, even though it is not today, and if there are good
prospects for growth and modernization in the meantime, it would be
useful to add a demand-oriented approach that tries to influence the
economic-development program in ways that speed up a country's
transition to a low-fertility regime. The provision of more and better
primary and secondary education in rural areas, especially coupled with
an attempt to attract girls,into the schools, the correction of factor-price
distortions that dampen the demand for labor (including, of course,
female labor), the elimination of discrimination against women in labor
markets, and the movement of people out of traditional agricultural
areas into more modem sectors as quickly as development permits are
all cases in point. It is at least as difficult to establish priorities within
this area as it is to indicate how to get general development going. But
it is likely that placing an emphasis on such high demographic-impact
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programs would alter the style and composition of development in sig-
nificant ways.
As we have seen, a number of the programs that would be included
in such an approach can have positive income effects in the short run;
indeed, it could take several decades before the long-run negative effects
gathered sufficient strength to offset them. If the population problem is
more immediately pressing or is likely to become so before this ap-
proach has time to work, more emphasis should be placed on the use
of incentives, deliberate efforts to alter preferences (using mass media
and other approaches), and institutional and organizational changes
(for example, of the type suggested by Dixon) that represent somewhat
more direct intervention into the determinants of the family's decision-
making process.
If, however, the population problem is more urgent yet, creating
severe short-term pressures and threatening to swamp the development
program altogether, more coercive measures, such as prolonged separa-
tion of the sexes through drafts for military and work-camp service and
compulsory sterilization after the bearing of a certain number of chil-
dren, may be called for. We have deliberately not considered such
measures in this volume. If we get on quickly enough with the tasks of
developing and testing less draconian policies, we may hope that the
number of cases in which they have to be used will be few and far
between.
Berelson, Bernard. 1974. "An Evaluation of the Effects of Population Con-
trol Programs," Studies in Family Planning 5(1):2-12. (January).
Berg, Alan, with Robert Muscat. 1973. The Nutrition Factor. Washington,
D.C.: Brookings Institution.
Bindary, Aziz. 1975. "The Women's Employment Action Research Project."
Processed. Cairo, Egypt: Family Planning Board.
Cain, Glen G., and Adriana Weininger. 1973. "Economic Determinants of
Fertility: Results from Cross-Sectional Aggregate Data," Demography
10(2):205-23.
De Tray, Dennis. 1972. The Interaction Between Parent Investment in Chil-
dren and Family Size: An Economic Analysis. Santa Monica, Calif.: The
Rand Corporation, R-1003-RF.
Finnegan, Oliver D. III, and T. H. Sun. 1972. "Planning, Starting, and
Operating an Educational Incentives Program," Studies in Family Plan-
ning 3(1):1-7 (January).
Frankel, Richard. 1973. "A System Approach to Assessment of Rural Water
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Supply Program Effectiveness." Lucerne, Switzerland: Paper presented
at the International Development Research Seminar, June.
Hickman, Bryan D. 1972. Economic Incentives: A Strategy for Family
Planning Programs. Santa Barbara, Calif.: G. E. Tempo.
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). 1974.
Population Policies and Economic Development, Report No. 481 (12
July).
Kershaw, David N. 1972. "A Negative Income Tax Experiment," Scientific
American 227(4):19_25 (October).
Kershaw, David N., and Jerilyn Fair. 1975. Final Report on the New Jersey
Experiment: Operations, Administration, and Surveys. Chicago: Aca-
demic Press.
Lindert, Peter H. Forthcoming. Fertility and Scarcity in America. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Mauldin, W. Parker. 1975. "Assessment of National Family Planning Pro-
grams in Developing Countries," Studies in Family Planning 6(2):30--
36 (February).
Pohlman, Edward. 1971. Incentives and Compensations in Birth Planning.
Chapel Hill: Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina.
Ridker, Ronald G., and Robert Muscat. 1973. "Incentives for Family Wel-
fare and Fertility Reduction: An Illustration for Malaysia, Studies in
Family Planning 4(1) : 1-11 (January).
Teitelbaum, Michael S. 1975. "Relevance of Demographic Transition
Theory for Developing Countries," Science 188(4187):420-25 (2 May).
Wang, C. M., and S. Y. Chen. 1973. "Evaluation of the First Year of the
Educational Savings Program in Taiwan," Studies in Family Planning
4(7) :157-61 (July).
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I recently asked a panel of distinguished experts to review our
activities in the population field Within the World Bank.
They took a hard look at everything we have been doing since
1969, and they rightly reproached us for a tendency to treat
population too much in isolation from our other activities.
They pointed out that we have be h prepared to lend for
population projects, and were read o bring specialized analy-
sis to population issues when there of obvious immediate
importance.
But too many of us in thenk had proceeded as if population
issues could be left to specialists, rather than considered auto-
matically in all aspec/of our investment and development
programs.
In short, they as ed us to think about the problem in a more
comprehensive / ay--and deal with it accordingly.
They were right. And that is exactly what we plan to do.
Let me, pow, summarize and conclude the central points 1
have male this evening.
Vt. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The argument I have made is this.
It now appears that a significant decline in fertility may have
at last begun in the developing countries. The data are not yet
fully conclusive, but the indications are that the crude birth rates
have fallen over the past two decades by an average of about 6
points, or nearly 13%.
By major region, the decline has been 6.5 points in Asia; 5.4
points in Latin America; and 2.3 points in Africa.
Further, the decline appears to have been general and wide-
spread. It has occurred in 77 of the 88 countries for which esti-
mates are available.
If these indications are confirmed by the censuses scheduled
for 1980, then what we are seeing here is something of !'historic
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importance. It would mean that the period of rapid acceleration
in the rate of growth of the world's population has finally
reached its peak and is now definitely moving downward`.v
towards stabilization.
But as welcome as this is, the fact remains that the current rate
of decline in fertility in the developing countries is too slow to
avoid their ultimately arriving at stationary populations far in
excess of acceptable levels.
Unless governments, through appropriate policy action, can.
accelerate the reduction in fertility, the global population may
not stabilize below 11 billion. That would be a world none of cis
would want to live in.
But governments can take action, and can accelerate the pro-
cess, given the resolve and determination to do so.
The critical point is this: for every decade of delay in achieving
a net reproduction rate of 1.0--replacement-level fertility--the
ultimate steady-state world population will be approximately
15% greater.
Governments, then, must avoid the severe penalties of pro-
crastination, and try to hasten the process forward.
But how?
The causes and determinants of fertility reduction are ex-
tremely complex, but it appears likely that there are a number
of key linkages between that reduction and certain specific ele-
ments of socio-economic development.
The factors that appear to be the most important are: health,
education, broadly distributed economic growth, urbanization,
and the enhanced status of women.
These factors are at work in the developing world today, but
their progress is too slow to be fully effective.
Without additional intervention on the part of governments,
the current population in the developing world is going to con-
tinue to grow at rates very substantially in excess of those that
52 would permit far more economic and social progress.
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There are two broad categories of interventions that govern-
ments must undertake: those designed to encoura,,e couples to
desire smaller families; and those designed to provide parents
with the means to implement that desire.
The first set of interventions sets out to alter the social and
economic environment that tends to promote fertility, and by
altering it to create a demand among parents for a new and -
smaller family norm.
And the second set of interventions supplies the requisite
means that will make that new norm attainable.
To create the demand for a change in family norm, govern-
ments should try to:
? Reduce current infant and child mortality rates sharply.
Expand basic education and substantially increase the pro-
portion of girls in school.
Increase the productivity of smallholders in the rural areas,
and expand earning opportunities in the cities for low-
income groups.
? Put greater stress on more equitable distribution of income
and services in the drive for greater economic growth.
? And above all else, raise the status of women socially, eco-
nomically,. and politically.
To satisfy the demand for a change in family norms, govern-
ments and the international community should:
? Provide a broad choice of the present contraceptive tech-
niques and services to parents.
? Improve the delivery systems by which parents can get the
services they wish.
? And expand present levels of research seeking better tech-
niques and services.
Both categories of interventions are necessary.
Recent studies confirm that the effect of family planning pro- 53
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grams is greatest when they are joined to efforts designed to
promote related social goals.
We know that eventually the world's population will have to
stop growing. That is certain.
What is uncertain is how. And when. At what level. And with
what result.
We who are alive today can determine the answers to those
questions. By our action-or inaction-we will shape the world
for all generations to come.
We can avoid a world of 11 billion, and all the misery that
such an impoverished and crowded planet would imply. But we
cannot avoid it by continuing into the next quarter century the
ineffective approach to the problem of population that has
characterized the past twenty-five years.
Man is still young in cosmic terms.
He has been on earth for a million years or so. And our mod-
ern ancestor, Homo sapiens, for a hundred thousand years.
But the universe of which he is a part is some twenty billion
years old.
And if we represent the history of the universe by a line a mile
long, then modern man has appeared on that line for only a frac-
tion of an inch.
In that time perspective, he is recent, and tentative, and per-
haps even experimental. He makes mistakes. And yet, if he is
truly sapiens---thinking and,wise--then surely there is promise
for him.
Problems, yes. But very great promise--if v: e will but act.
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