The theoretical and political framing of the population factor in development

Abstract

The silence about population growth in recent decades has hindered the ability of those concerned with ecological change, resource scarcity, health and educational systems, national security, and other global challenges to look with maximum objectivity at the problems they confront. Two central questions about population--(1) is population growth a problem? and (2) what causes fertility decline?--are often intertwined; if people think the second question implies possible coercion, or fear of upsetting cultures, they can be reluctant to talk about the first. The classic and economic theories explaining the demographic transition assume that couples want many children and they make decisions to have a smaller family when some socio-economic change occurs. However, there are numerous anomalies to this explanation. This paper suggests that the societal changes are neither necessary nor sufficient for family size to fall. Many barriers of non-evidence-based restrictive medical rules, cost, misinformation and social traditions exist between women and the fertility regulation methods and correct information they need to manage their family size. When these barriers are reduced, birth rates tend to decline. Many of the barriers reflect a patriarchal desire to control women, which can be largely explained by evolutionary biology. The theoretical explanations of fertility should (i) attach more weight to the many barriers to voluntary fertility regulation, (ii) recognize that a latent desire to control fertility may be far more prevalent among women than previously understood, and (iii) appreciate that women implicitly and rationally make benefit-cost analyses based on the information they have, wanting modern family planning only after they understand it is a safe option. Once it is understood that fertility can be lowered by purely voluntary means, comfort with talking about the population factor in development will rise.

Figure 1.

Disparities between the rich and poor have expanded in the past decade (African Population and Health Research Center, Nairobi, 1996). Between the DHS surveys in the 1990s and those in the first decade of the twenty-first century, we see a wider disparity between the TFRs of women in the richest (black bar, 1990s; light grey bar, latest) economic quintile in each of seven African countries and those in the poorest (dark grey bar, 1990s; white bar, latest) economic quintile. One way to interpret this is that the richer women were able to find opportunities to manage their childbearing, while the poorer women were left behind with fewer options for family planning.

Figure 2.

TFR with and without access to abortion. (D. Montagu 2005, personal communication). Abortion access is generally based on legal availability as analysed by IPPF. Note that some countries (starred) are listed as having accessible abortion, even though there are legal restraints they are not commonly followed. Others (double star) have legally accessible abortion, but practically availability is highly restricted. Diamonds, without abortion; squares, with abortion; black line, linear (without abortion); grey line, linear (with abortion).

Figure 3.

Changes in poverty levels, 1990–2004. While the percentage of people in sub-Saharan Africa who live in extreme poverty decreased slightly between 1990 and 2004, owing to the population growth the actual number of people in extreme poverty has increased by 61.4 million people.