population/fertility rates, immigration policy & aid
Interesting paper here, asserting that the demographic transition model and aid policies based on it are totally wrong.
http://www.carryingcapacity.org/va2.html
Hmm. According to this paper, economic development and declining infant mortality rates don't necessarily result in lower birth rates (as the conventional wisdom would have it). The author's thesis is that perceived economic opportunities from foreign aid and emigration possibilities encourage people in poorer countries to have more children, thus the current massive population overshoot in many developing countries. Hence the humanitarian thing for rich nations to do is to reduce incentives by giving less unconditional aid and making immigration harder.
This sounds like a convenient justification for right-wing policies to me...
Assuming the author hasn't cherry-picked her references (which I have no idea if she has or not, this is way not my area!) what does still work is increasing the opportunity cost of having kids - e.g. by encouraging women to work outside the home, where they need to pay childcare. Educating girls (presumably without encouraging them to work outside the home) apparently doesn't change completed family size, but does delay marriage and age of first birth - so it buys time if nothing else.
I have great difficulty believing the citation that only 1-2% of women in Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Peru and Liberia 'were not using or intending [if already pregnant/postpartum amenorrheic] to use contraception in a manner consistent with their completed family size preference'. That would mean every single woman studied had access to contraceptives when they needed them. If that's true for the whole population in those countries that's awesome, but last I heard the situation was otherwise :/
Apparently fertility rates in France and Germany in the 19th-20th centuries dropped BEFORE the decline in child mortality. Hopefully most people would not use this datum as justification for removing programs to reduce child mortality. Instead I hope someone is looking at the reasons for the drop, and whether we could replicate them (assuming to do so would be humane...)
Population growth is a complex knot, that's for sure. Anyone out there have any thoughts on the matter?
http://www.carryingcapacity.org/va2.html
Hmm. According to this paper, economic development and declining infant mortality rates don't necessarily result in lower birth rates (as the conventional wisdom would have it). The author's thesis is that perceived economic opportunities from foreign aid and emigration possibilities encourage people in poorer countries to have more children, thus the current massive population overshoot in many developing countries. Hence the humanitarian thing for rich nations to do is to reduce incentives by giving less unconditional aid and making immigration harder.
This sounds like a convenient justification for right-wing policies to me...
Assuming the author hasn't cherry-picked her references (which I have no idea if she has or not, this is way not my area!) what does still work is increasing the opportunity cost of having kids - e.g. by encouraging women to work outside the home, where they need to pay childcare. Educating girls (presumably without encouraging them to work outside the home) apparently doesn't change completed family size, but does delay marriage and age of first birth - so it buys time if nothing else.
I have great difficulty believing the citation that only 1-2% of women in Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Peru and Liberia 'were not using or intending [if already pregnant/postpartum amenorrheic] to use contraception in a manner consistent with their completed family size preference'. That would mean every single woman studied had access to contraceptives when they needed them. If that's true for the whole population in those countries that's awesome, but last I heard the situation was otherwise :/
Apparently fertility rates in France and Germany in the 19th-20th centuries dropped BEFORE the decline in child mortality. Hopefully most people would not use this datum as justification for removing programs to reduce child mortality. Instead I hope someone is looking at the reasons for the drop, and whether we could replicate them (assuming to do so would be humane...)
Population growth is a complex knot, that's for sure. Anyone out there have any thoughts on the matter?