Population Policies

10 Key excerpts on "Population Policies"

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  Population and Society

  An Introduction to Demography

  • Dudley L. Poston, Jr., Leon F. Bouvier(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  13 Population Policy INTRODUCTION A population policy is a deliberately constructed arrangement or program “through which governments influence, directly or indirectly, demographic change” (Demeny, 2003: 752). These arrangements typically are “legisla- tive measures, administrative programs, and other governmental actions intended to alter or modify existing population trends in the interest of national survival and welfare” (Eldridge, 1968: 381). The demographer John May has written that “Population Policies are designed to regulate and, if possible, mitigate the problems [of too rapid growth or decline] by adjusting population size and structure to the needs and aspirations of the people” (2005: 828). Population Policies are usually understood to represent strategies for governments or sometimes, albeit less frequently, nongovernmental orga- nizations (NGOs) to attain specific goals. The procedures or programs are put into place to ensure that the goals of the policy are attained. As already noted, a policy is generally intended to either reduce or increase popula- tion levels. Policies are typically developed “in the interest of the greater good . . . in order to address imbalances between demographic changes and other social, economic and political goals” (May, 2005: 828). We read in earlier chapters of this book that many countries in the world today have high rates of population growth. We also know that many have negative or near-negative rates of growth, and many more have fertility rates below replacement levels. In 2008, for instance, more than seventy countries had total fertility rates below 2.1 (Population Reference Bureau, 2008b). Countries exhibiting demographic conditions of too-high or too-low growth sometimes develop policies whose goals are to try to restore the demographic balance. Whether the issue is severe or minor, demographic behavior is of inter- est to all governments.

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  Population Geography: Progress & Prospect (Routledge Revivals)

  • Michael Pacione(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  Chapter Five Government Population Policies I. Thomas Introduction

  When the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs produced its report on “The World Population Situation in 1970” (UN, 1971) it observed that all governments have policies, legislation and programmes which affect population growth and distribution. It then went on to assert: “However, such measures represent national population policy only when implemented for the purpose of altering the natural course of population movements.” (p. 67). This view was to be modified considerably over the next five years and in ways which brought the subject matter of population policy and population geography much closer.

  The change in official attitudes was already occurring while the UN report was being published. In Britain, for instance, Sir Solly Zuckerman – then Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government – in a memorandum on “Population growth in the United Kingdom” to the 1970–71 Parliamentary Select Committee on Science and Technology (HMSO, 1971:35–7), noted three main aspects of population change in Britain in which the government had a particular interest. They were policies which influence population movement, the effects of population growth and movement, and family planning and population growth. The first of these, government policies likely to affect movements, were of two sorts: “regional policies” designed to improve conditions in those areas designated development and intermediate areas, and “dispersal policies” whose aim was to reduce congestion in the major urban areas. The second category covered those areas of national life for which the government has a planning responsibility and therefore needs to take account of the likely consequences of population change. This included the demand for transport facilities, the nature of housing programmes, the planning of education services, the training of skilled workers, and the regional allocation of investment. Finally, the provision of family planning services as part of the National Health Service since the 1967 Act made this an important part of the government’s concern.

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  Population and Development Issues

  • Yves Charbit(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-ISTE

    (Publisher)

  actions taken explicitly or implicitly by public authorities, in order to prevent, delay, or address imbalances between demographic changes, on the one hand, and social, economic, [environmental] and political goals, on the other” (May 2012, p. 2). The ultimate goal of Population Policies is to adjust the population size and age structure to the needs and aspirations of the people. However, there is an ongoing debate about whether and how public authorities should intervene in population patterns and trends and, by implementing Population Policies, correct the imbalances caused by the increase or decrease of population and changes in the age structures. Despite a rather large consensus in favor of population interventions, some scholars have argued that it might be better to let natural and self-regulatory mechanisms, if any, do their work (Demeny 1986). However, other researchers have questioned the effectiveness and even the usefulness of Population Policies (Vallin 2016).

  Nonetheless, there has always been a large consensus in favor of policy interventions to reduce mortality. Furthermore, recent decades have also seen the strengthening of arguments in favor of fertility reduction and voluntary family planning, although some SSA governments have been reluctant to promote large-scale family planning programs (May 2012, 2017a). On the contrary, there is much less consensus in the more developed countries regarding the effectiveness of pronatalist policies, which public authorities have often been reluctant to implement. Moreover, population distribution policies, that is, programs to relocate populations in order to reduce population pressure in the migrants’ regions of origin, have been controversial (such a transmigration program was implemented in Indonesia between 1974 and 1994; see May (2012)). It should be kept in mind that demographic trends are essentially the result of decisions people make as couples or as individuals, with the overall aim being the achievement of household and/or personal goals. At the societal level, however, these individual decisions can have adverse or positive effects, which economists have labeled externalities. Negative externalities result when societal costs are out of line with those that are taken into account by individuals, that is, when the costs to society are greater than the costs supported by individuals. For example, high fertility levels may bring wealth and power to some families, but jeopardize the well-being of the community and its physical environment by depleting natural resources, causing deforestation in the case of agrarian societies, or aggravating unemployment, poverty and chaotic urbanization in the case of more industrialized societies (Pebley 1998).

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  Encyclopedia of Policy Studies, Second Edition

  • Stuart Nagel(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  Aside from the difficulty of defining policy precisely, there are problems unique to the subject of population. For present purposes, a rigorous definition of population policy is not essential, nor need we review the full range of definitional issues that students of population policy have raised. After a search of 34 authors writing between 1940 and 1975, Corsa and Oakley (1979) found consensus on the following elements: Some demographic effect is intended or produced, governments participate in some way, indirect as well as direct means are included, and the concern is population-influencing rather than population-responsive policies. Taking into account the varying usage and these common elements, they offer the following definition: Population policy consists of “those actions of government that affect or attempt to affect the balance between births, deaths, and migration of human beings” (p. 156).

  This a fairly inclusive definition. It allows for unintended consequences of government action and indirect policy impact on components of a nation’s population and does not specify how purposive, sustained, or coherent the actions of government need be. Miller and Godwin (1977) expand the scope of population policy further. It should include, they argue, “something a government chooses to do or not to do” about population problems. Thus “nondecisions,” decisions not to take action, are considered important. By not taking action on population, governments allow other influences (e.g., private decision making) to determine population events.

  Such broad definitions are needed to capture much of what the United States and other nations have done (and not done) about population problems. At the same time, for many purposes one needs to differentiate between explicit Population Policies having as their major goal the achievement of particular demographic effects (e.g., lower fertility) and other policies, such as the regulation of abortion, that have only indirect and/or unintended population impacts. The United States has never adopted an explicit or comprehensive national population policy, but a variety of more limited policies affecting population trends have been enacted in the last several decades.

  II. WORLD POPULATION TRENDS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

  Prior to examining U.S. population trends and policy actions, an overview of demographic developments on a worldwide basis—in developing as well as developed nations—is useful. The exercise helps to place U.S. population policy issues into the broader context in which they must be assessed.

  The major population trend is one of rapid growth. The extraordinary modern acceleration of growth began around 1750. Prior to that time, human history was characterized by a relatively stable or very slowly growing population. By 1800, however, the world population rose to 1 billion people, by 1900 to 1.7 billion, and by 1950 to 2.5 billion (Coale, 1974). In October 1992, it stood at 5.5 billion, or more than twice as large as it was only 40 years earlier (United Nations, 1992).

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  Human Geography

  People, Place, and Culture

  • Erin H. Fouberg, Alexander B. Nash, Alexander B. Murphy, Harm J. de Blij(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  There is often considerable disagreement over what policies and approaches should be implemented and for what purpose. Geography offers much to the study of population. Through geography we can see differences in population problems across space, observe how what happens at one scale affects what goes on at other scales, and learn how different cultures and countries approach population questions. SUMMARY Population geographers are keenly interested in the demo- graphic and locational aspects of populations. They examine population density, distribution, and composition at a variety of scales from the local to the national, regional, and global. Global population density, distribution, and composition tell us a great deal about the health and stability of particular places. The loca- tion of a population or group clearly has an impact on that pop- ulation’s health, survival rate, life expectancy, and quality of life. In the late 1700s, Thomas Malthus sounded the alarm about the rapidly growing population in Great Britain. He feared a mas- sive famine would soon “check” the growing population, bringing widespread suffering. Although the famine in Great Britain did not take place as he predicted, the rapidly growing worldwide popula- tion made many others follow Malthus’s lead, issuing similar warn- ings about the population explosion over the next two centuries. The growth rate of the world population has certainly slowed, but human suffering is not over yet. Dozens of coun- tries still face high death rates. Even in countries where the death rate is low, slowed population growth is often a result of deplorable sanitary and medical conditions, which cause high DISCUSSION AND REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. In an historical context, Europe was known as a region of high population that resulted in mass emigration to the New World. However, the situation today is vastly different. Describe the situation today, its causes, and the impacts it will have on European society.

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  Applied Human Geography

  • Rodolfo B. Valdenarro(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Delve Publishing

    (Publisher)

  Their location of the population and government policies connected to it got bigger consideration of geographers. One outstanding expansion in the subdivision was a move away from mere patterns of the population to the investigation of procedures, particularly migration. There was a shift over from the macro analytic description of societal physics in the direction of the micro analytic description of behavioralist, though the former was not totally given up. The preoccupation of population geographers with dispersal and configuration the so called ‘traditional pattern orientation’ in population geography, appealed severe disapproval by some of the geographers to the close of 1970s. The publication of two books, that is, Population Analysis in Geography by Woods in 1979, and A Population Geography by Jones in 1981, started a conversation on the requirement to rearrange the focus that has been levied on the field of population geography. There are some experts who had laid their entirely focused that population should depict the process orientation, in sequence with the modern patterns in geography, with focus on the dynamics of population. Later on, Woods recommended that the part of population geographers is “not to define the geography of population by the focus on its dispersal but to employ their spatial perception in the examination of demographic structures.” Disapproving the wide-ranging description, which makes population geography equal to human geography, Woods recommended that population geographers should reformulate the essential of the sub-discipline and master Applied Human Geography 128 the contemporary methods. Also, he recommended that spatial difference in mortality, fertility and migration, composed with those of population distribution, must make the essential parts of the sub-discipline. 6.6. SCOPE OF POPULATION GEOGRAPHY The scope of the researches on the population quite extensive in nature.

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  Development And Demographic Change In Taiwan (1945-1995)

  • Roger Mark Selya(Author)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • World Scientific

    (Publisher)

  Not having to migrate was seen then as potentially attrac-tive since it would minimize personal and social adjustments associated with long distance migration (Freedman et al., 1985). Direct Distribution Policies and Programs These policies can be grouped into three categories (Table 6.3). The program of comprehensive regional planning had as one of its major Population Policies 403 Table 6.3 Direct Population Redistribution Policies and Programs Comprehensive Regional Planning (1971) Satellite New Town Building Program Wuchi Port Zoning Restrictions on Plant Expansion Dispersion of Government Offices (1957) Dispersion of Military Bases, Universities Dispersion of Wholesale Markets Sources: Li and Tsai (1988), Tsai (1987). goals the achievement of a more rational distribution of population, which was to develop simultaneously with a more balanced pattern of regional development. These goals were to be achieved by careful phys-ical and social planning at a regional scale. One means of doing this was to create new towns, as in the case of Linkou New Town (Urban and Housing Development Committee, 1971), or new growth poles as in the case of the new Taichung International Port at Wuchi (Selya, 1974). Zoning restrictions were seen as a mechanism for redirecting locational decisions in manufacturing or services, thus creating new points of attraction on the landscape outside the major urban concentrations. The deliberate placement of educational, government, and military facilities outside the major political and economic centers was an attempt to dif-fuse institutions that employed large numbers of people to places out-side the existing power centers in hopes of creating new growth poles. Evaluation of All Distribution Policies In general, there are two categories of evaluations of both types of dis-tribution policies.

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  Migration Decision Making

  Multidisciplinary Approaches to Microlevel Studies in Developed and Developing Countries

  • Gordon F. De Jong, Robert W. Gardner, Gordon F. De Jong, Robert W. Gardner(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Pergamon

    (Publisher)

  This chapter is drawn largely from a report entitled Migra-tion and Fertility: Empirical Findings, Theoretical Relation-ships, and Policy Implications, prepared under contract No. AID/OTR 147-79-96 for PPC/PDPR of the Agency for Inter-national Development. 10 281 282 MIGRATION DECISION MAKING In an excellent review of internal migration in developing countries, Simmons et al. (1977) emphasized both the com-plexity of the issues involved and the difficulty of evaluating the impact of policies designed to affect migration patterns. In developing countries the dominant migration stream is rural-to-urban resulting in an exacerbation of urbanization-related problems. Simmons et al. noted that rural-to-urban migration is structured by the interaction of fundamental socioeconomic and ecological forces including excess labor in rural areas, shortage of agricultural land, soil erosion, ethnic and racial group conflicts, and the economies of scale inherent in the urban way of life. Public policies often have little control over many of these factors and where they do have some impact (say in areas of trade, industrial investment, and the location of social services) programs are often introduced without any particular regard to their impact on the size and distribution of human s e t -tlements, or to the subsequent impact of these variables on the development process itself. It is not surprising, therefore, that when specific policies are implemented that do seek to influence the pattern of human settlements, they are often not effective. The momentum of other government policies and of the broad dynamics of socioeconomic change are far more powerful than the specific policies (Simmons et al. 1977: 109). As Simmons et al. s u g g e s t , there are reasons why a particular policy may fail to have the desired effect. Policies may be ambiguously stated and not vigorously applied. Or funds may be insufficient to provide the capital investment required to implement a given policy.

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  Key aspects of Environmental planning: Public policy and practice

  • Vierah Hulley(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Delve Publishing

    (Publisher)

  These influences can take many forms. Because of high fertility rates in emerging nations and low fertility rates in Key Aspects of Environmental Planning: Public Policy and Practice 96 developed nations, the world’s population is currently made up of persons from developing nations at a rate that is around 80% of the total. In 1996, 125 million people were living outside of the country in which they were born, and the annual net flow of international migrants is between 2 and 4 million people. One facet of the process of urbanization that is taking place all over the world is the movement of people from rural areas to urban ones (Boholm, 2008). In 1960, only a little more than one-third of the world’s population lived in urban areas. Since 1999, the percentage has more than doubled, passing the half-century milestone by a significant margin (47%). It is anticipated that this pattern will carry on for a considerable amount of time far into the twenty-first century (Figure 5.4). Figure 5.4. Global population distribution. Source: https://www.fao.org/3/a0310e/A0310E06.htm. The spread of people all over the world has three key effects that they have had on the ecology. In less-developed nations, such as those in sub- Saharan Africa, a growing population leads to an increase in the stress placed on limited resources, which in turn leads to a rise in the population growth rate. Migration can also affect the degree of stress that is experienced in local ecosystems. As a direct consequence of this, certain areas of the country are subject to a lower level of these pressures, while others are subject to a higher level. There is some good news, however, as urbanization tends to race ahead of infrastructural and environmental restraints, particularly in developing nations. This results in a rise in the number of pollutants. The following information pertains to the population’s demographics.

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  Between Self-Determination and Social Technology

  Medicine, Biopolitics and the New Techniques of Procedural Management

  • Kathrin Braun(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • transcript Verlag

    (Publisher)

  Thus, what we see is the concurrence of internationalization and nationalization in Population Policies rather than an increasing trend towards global networks and purely economic relationships. In order to account for the immense significance that private organizations and NGOs have had from the very beginning in the allocation of population policy funding, it seems appropri-ate to draw on neo-Marxist theories and Antonio Gramsci in speaking of an expanded and internationalized state (Borg 2001; Hirsch 2000). Referring to neo-Marxist theoretical perspectives, the project of global Population Policies can be conceptualized as inherently state-based not because of the complex network of actors or institutions involved but because they analyze the state as a form or as a condensation of power relations within society (Poulantzas 2004). Under this conceptual premise, the project of global po-pulation policies is per se a state project because the underlying demogra-phic knowledge and the political project of neo-Malthusianism in them-selves are bound to the state form: the project of population regulation es-tablishes a specific social relationship within which social issues become translated into population issues and can thus be operationalized, which is not conceivable without the state form. Demography per se is a state sci-ence: fundamentally, it is based on statistical correlations between the po-pulation as an abstract quantity, as it is nationally measured by the state’s statistics bureaus (and possibly aggregated to continental or global data sets afterwards), on the one hand, and on quantitative data about social living conditions, on the other (Heim/Schaz 1996; Hummel 2000). N EW BIOPOLITICS ? | 251 These statistical correlations form the basis for the neo-Malthusianism idea that social crisis situations are caused by an imbalance between the population as “biomass,” on the one hand, and limited resources, on the other.

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