Population Policy: Ideology as Science

Sat, 01 Jan 1994 00:00:00 -0500

In recent years the poorer regions of the earth have been swept by a “population revolution” which, though it has attracted comparatively little attention, is nevertheless both unprecedented and pregnant with consequences for the peoples of the countries affected. This “revolution” has been taking place neither in the bedroom nor in the health clinic, but rather in the corridors of government. Among otherwise diverse countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, a single idea has rapidly gained currency: that a modern government should have a population “policy”—an array of laws and measures specifically aimed at shaping the composition, size, and rates of change of the national population.

India's was the first Third World government to endorse the principle of an active population policy. It took that step in December 1952, with the adoption of its first Five Year Plan, a document establishing as a long-run governmental objective the direction of the country's population toward “a level consistent with the requirements of the national economy.” By the mid-1980s, over thirty governments in the less-developed regions of the world were following suit. This group included the governments of six of the world's ten most populous countries. By the late 1980s, more than seventy of the world's governments reported that they viewed their national fertility or population growth rates as “unsatisfactory,” and that they considered policy interventions to alter these rates to be “appropriate.” As of 1990, more than three billion people were living under such governments: over four-fifths of the population of the less-developed regions of the earth at the time, and nearly two-thirds of the population of the entire globe.

The adoption of comprehensive population policy marks an eventful change in the conception of the role of government in civic life. In the past, governments were often called upon to perform duties with demonstrable demographic consequences—the regulation of immigration, for example, or the eradication of communicable disease. The demographic impact of such programs, however, was typically subsidiary to their intended purpose (the preservation of national sovereignty, the promotion of public health, etc.). The idea of harnessing state power to the goal of altering the demographic rhythms of society per se suggests—and indeed almost seems to require—a new sort of relationship between the state and the citizen.

The nature of this new relationship is indicated by some of the targets that have been set by contemporary population policies. The government of Bangladesh, for example, has committed itself to the goal of a total fertility rate of 2.34 births per family by the year 2000; women in Bangladesh today, however, are thought to have an average of just under five children. The government of Ghana, for its part, has determined that its national fertility rate at the start of the twenty-first century should be 3.3 births per family; yet Ghana's parents are currently guessed to be having an average of about six children per family. If Bangladesh and Ghana are to meet their established targets, both governments must apparently oversee a reduction in their people's fertility by roughly 50 percent in the next six years—and in Ghana there are as yet no indications of sustained fertility decline. Just how such a radical alteration of personal behavior in so intimate a sphere of life is to be achieved is not clear to outside observers; it may not even be apparent to the planners who envision these targets. But if such reshaping of national fertility patterns is to be set in motion by government action, there would obviously have to be direct, far-reaching, and even forcible state interventions into the daily lives of the overwhelming majority of the citizens of these two countries—as well as others with similar “targets.”

What accounts for the rise of population policy? “Population planning” as currently practiced in China—with its “birth quotas” and its manifold pressures and penalties to “convince” parents to have but a single child—may seem particularly consonant with the philosophical underpinnings of a Communist dictatorship. Yet a stringent and encompassing population policy, only somewhat less ambitious than Beijing's, has also been executed in Singapore—a society with a nominally democratic government. Indeed, the list of Third World governments committed to the goal of shaping the demographic pattern of their societies seems to cover the political spectrum, including not only dictatorships and one-party states (Haiti, Indonesia), but also monarchies (Morocco, Nepal) and a number of genuine constitutional democracies (such as Barbados and Botswana).

The revolution in government presaged by an activist population policy would thus seem to be based less in politics per se than in “science,” for in the final analysis it is the field of learning known as “population studies” that provides population policy with its raison d'etre. This field, it is widely believed, has advanced sufficiently to permit meaningful predictions of the impact of population changes on the social and economic development of both rich and poor societies. Insofar as modern governance is predicated on the idea that national directorates can and should act to improve the material well-being of their subjects, and insofar as a useful understanding of the specific economic and social consequences of population change appears to have been developed, it should not be surprising that a growing number of governments have seen merit in the prospect of shaping the demographic contours of their country so that national welfare and social prosperity might be “scientifically” advanced.

Unfortunately for all involved, contemporary population policies have in large part been promoted and adopted on the basis of a serious misconception. The relationship between population change and economic development is as yet rather poorly understood, the assertions of certain bold professionals to the contrary notwithstanding. For many of the relationships between the two that have been suggested are at best highly tentative, and in any event cannot be construed to imply causation. Still others are characterized by false precision or misplaced specificity. And despite the authority that population “scientists” today lend to the worldwide effort to promote birth control, convincing evidence that voluntary family planning programs have resulted in sustained changes in fertility norms is still lacking. None of this augurs well for the populations upon which far-reaching and purportedly scientific population policies are to be applied.

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Population Policy: Ideology as Science