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U.S. Population Policies, Development, and the Rural Poor of Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Edward Green
Edward Green
Affiliation:
Social Science Adviser, Health Education Centre, Ministry of Health, Mbabane, Swaziland.
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Extract

A 1980 World Bank study paints a bleak picture of the current economic situation in sub-Saharan Africa, where most countries are at the bottom of the development pyramid. They have low incomes per capita, and their rates of economic growth have fallen behind Asian countries of comparable low income. Moreover, population growth in Africa is accelerating while trends in other developing regions suggest a slowing down.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 1982 , pp. 45 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

1 Gulhati, Ravi, ‘Eastern and Southern Africa: past trends and future prospects’, World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 413, Washington, D.C., 08 1980Google Scholar.

2 U.S. Agency for International Development, Evaluating Family Planning Programs (Washington, D.C., 1979).

1 Cf. Meek, Ronald (ed.), Marx and Engels on the Population Bomb (Berkeley, 1971)Google Scholar. Also Cereseto, S., ‘On the Causes and Solution to the Problem of World Hunger and Starvation: evidence from China, India, and Other Places’, in The Insurgent Sociologist (Eugene, Ore.), 7, 3, Summer 1977, pp. 35–57;Google ScholarStevenson, P., ‘Overpopulation and Underdevelopment: myths and realities’, in Social Praxis (Paris), 5, 1–2, 1978, pp. 87–111;Google Scholar and Brackett, James, ‘The Evolution of Marxist Theories of Population: Marxism recognises the population problem’, in Demography (Washington, D.C.), 5, 1, 1968, pp. 158–73Google Scholar.

2 For a worthwhile discussion and critique of this proposal, see Hauser, Philip, ‘Population Criteria in Foreign Aid Programs’, Population Reference Bureau, Washington, D.C., 1973, selection 42Google Scholar.

1 Two of the better expositions of this argument are found in Lappé, Frances Moore and Collins, Joseph, Food First: beyond the myth of scarcity (Boston, 1977)Google Scholar, and George, Susan, How the Other Half Dies: the real reasons for world hunger (Montclair, N.J., 1977)Google Scholar.

2 Steve Weissman, ‘Forward’, in Meek (ed.), op. cit. pp. ix-xxii.

1 Weissman, Steve, ‘Why the Population Bomb is a Rockefeller Baby’, in Ramparts (Berkeley), 8, 1970, pp. 42–7Google Scholar.

2 Ravenholt, R. T. in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, quoted by Ehrenreich et al., ‘The Charge: gynocide’, in Mother Jones (San Francisco), 11 1979, p. 31Google Scholar.

3 ‘Business Involvement is Urged in Slowing Population Growth’, in Popline (Washington, D.C.), 3, 10, October 1981, p. 1.

4 Cf. Barclay, W. et al. , ‘Population Control in the Third World’, in Pohiman, Edward (ed.), Population: a clash of prophets (New York, 1973), pp. 464–83Google Scholar, and Weissman, ‘Why the Population Bomb is a Rockefeller Baby’.

1 For a summary of the argument over the existence of an élite or ruling class, see Green, Edward, ‘Knowledge, Power, and Policy Analysis’, in Soundings (Nashville), LXIII, 2, 1980, pp. 178–98Google Scholar.

2 Ahmed, Osman, ‘Population and Economic Development in Africa: a critical look at the current literature’, in Clinton, Richard (ed.), Population and Politics (Lexington, Mass., 1973), pp. 153–62Google Scholar.

3 Clinton, op. cit. p. 60.

4 Gulhati, op. cit.

1 For a refutation of this monolithic view, see Durham, W. H., Scarcity and Survival in Central America: ecological origins of the soccer war (Palo Alto, 1979)Google Scholar.

2 Weissman, ‘Forward’, p. xix.

1 Ehrenreich et al., loc. cit. pp. 28–31.

1 For recent reviews of this debate, see Faruqee, Rashid, ‘Sources of Fertility Decline: factor analysis of inter-country data’, World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 318, Washington, D.C., 02 1979;Google ScholarSinding, Steven, ‘Study of Family Planning Program Effectiveness’, A.I.D. Program Evaluation Discussion Paper No., Washington, D.C., 04 1979;Google Scholar and Miro, Carmen and Potter, Joseph, Population Policy: research priorities in the developing world (London, 1980), pp. 104–15Google Scholar.

2 Davis, Kingsley, ‘Population Policy: will current programs succeed?’, in Reining, Pricilla and Tinker, Irene (eds.), Population: dynamics, ethics and policy (Washington, D.C., 1975), pp. 27–36Google Scholar.

3 U.N.F.P.A., Inventory of Population Projects in Developing Countries Around the World, 1978/79 (New York, 1980)Google Scholar.

4 Davis, loc. cit. p. 71, recognises a population problem but believes that F.P. programmes offer no solution.

1 As Steven Beaver points out, demographic transition ‘theory’ is used as a paradigm and an empirical generalisation, as well as socio-demographic theory; Demographic Transition Theory Reinterpreted (Lexington, Mass., 1975).

2 See Sinding, op. cit. p. 3.

1 Mauldin, Parker W. and Berelson, Bernard, ‘Conditions of Fertility Decline in Developing Countries’, in Studies in Family Planning (New York), 9, 5, 1978Google Scholar.

2 Faruqee, op. cit.

3 Ibid. pp. 32–3.

1 notes, J. Simon, ‘From a forecasting viewpoint, education rather than income is the best single predictor of fertility decline, and even alone it is perhaps almost as good a predictor as a multivariate forecasting device’; ‘The Effects of Income on Fertility’, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1974Google Scholar. He also asserts that it is impossible to isolate the separate effects of income rise on fertility rates by statistical analysis.

2 Faruqee, op. cit. p. 36.

3 Ratcliffe, John, ‘Social Justice and the Demographic Transition: lessons from India's Kerala state’, in International Journal of Health Services (Farmingdale, N.Y.), 8, 1, pp. 123–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Beaver, op. cit. agrees that F.P. plays a facilitating rôle but does not cause lowered fertility.

1 See, for example, the conference paper by W. P. McGreevey and B. von Elm in Evaluating Family Planning Programs.

2 Kanagaratnam, Kandiah, ‘Population Policy and Family Planning Programs: trends in policy and administration’, World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 411, Washington, D.C., 08 1980, p. 20Google Scholar. See also Faruqee, op. cit. and Timothy King (ed.) Population Policies and Economic Development (Baltimore, 1974).

3 Ahmed, loc. cit. p. 156.

4 Cf. Corsa, Leslie and Oakley, Deborah, Population Planning (Ann Arbor, 1979), p. 65Google Scholar.

5 Bilsborrow, R., ‘Age Distribution and Savings Rates in Less Developed Countries’, in Economic Development and Cultural Change (Chicago), 28, 1, 10 1979, pp. 23–45Google Scholar.

1 Caldwell, John C., ‘The Economic Rationality of High Fertility: an investigation illustrated with Nigerian survey data’, in Population Studies (London), 31, 1, 03 1977, pp. 5–29Google Scholar.

2 Ahmed, op. cit. p. 156.

3 Corsa and Oakley, op. cit. pp. 56–7.

4 E. Chancy, ‘Women and Population: some key policy, research, and action issues’, in Clinton (ed), op. cit. pp. 233–46.

1 Mölnos, Angela, Resources for Population Planning in East Africa, Vol. II (Nairobi, 1971), p. 377Google Scholar, and King (ed), op. cit. p. 1.

2 The lay reader might be referred to Brown, Lester et al. , Twenty- Two Dimensions of the Population Problem (Washington, D.C., 1975)Google Scholar.

3 Richard Clinton, ‘Population, Politics and Political Science’, in Clinton (ed), op. cit. pp. 51–71.

1 See, for example, Mölnos, op. cit. Vol. I.

2 Cf. Waife, Ronald, ‘Traditional Methods of Birth Control in Zaire’, Pathfinder Fund, Boston, 12 1978;Google Scholar Barbara Furst, ‘Culture and Fertility’, in Evaluating Family Planning Programs; and Greeley, Edward, ‘Man and Fertility Regulation in Southern Meru: a case study from rural Kenya’, Ph.D. dissertation, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., 1977Google Scholar.

3 Cf. Shorter, Aylward, East African Societies (London, 1974)Google Scholar and Greeley, op. cit. p. 51.

4 It is not known for certain whether this is caused by greater spacing of pregnancies, the fact that there were more infertile women in polygynous compared to monogamous unions, or some other reason.

5 Beaver, op. cit. p. 44.

1 Ibid. For a critique of the notion of ‘insurance births’, and of ‘rational’ birth planning among the rural poor, see ibid. pp. 8 and 46.

2 Greeley, op. cit. p. 21.

1 Mölnos, op. cit. Vol. III.

1 Rogers, Everett, Communication Strategies for Family Planning (New York, 1973), pp. 12–13Google Scholar.

1 Ibid. pp. 9–13. See also, Stamper, B. M., Population and Planning in Developing Nations (New York, 1977)Google Scholar, for a review of African population policies and the specific concerns they express.

2 Corsa and Oakley, op. cit. p. 183. See also, Kanagaratnam, op. cit.

3 King (ed.), op. cit. p. 134.

1 Summarised in Sinding, op. cit. pp. 15–18.

2 Cf. Guihati, op. cit. p. 2.

3 ‘McNamara Calls U.S. “Disgraceful”’, in San Francisco Chronicle, 1 October 1980, p. 9.

1 Miro and Potter, op. cit. p. 110, note that ‘given the poor predictive power of existing fertility theory’, there are insufficient scientific grounds to argue that the development focus described above will guarantee lowered fertility. They partly answer the question this raises by conceding that such a strategy is ‘already desirable on other grounds’, and that the alternative approach of re-directing development with the hope of lowering fertility – i.e. restructuring basic elements of a country's social organisation – is far less feasible.

1 Cf. Editorial, ‘New Responsibility for Corporations’, in Poplirte, 3, 10, 10 1981, p. 2Google Scholar.