Baby Boom or Baby Bust?

Charles B. Keely

Only 35 years ago, in 1968, both the United Nations Fund for Population Activities and the United States Agency for International Development's Office of Population began funding family planning activities. Anyone who thought of a link between population and international affairs at the time focused almost exclusively on rapid population growth. The entry of international organizations and bilateral donors into the field of family planning programs was controversial-many questioned a government role in such a personal and value-laden area.

Rapid population growth was a security concern because the Coale-Hoover Growth Model predicted that economic growth would be restricted by rapid increases in population size caused by high fertility and lowering mortality rates. The resulting economic stagnation and decline, in the face of ever increasing demands by a growing population, were seen as a recipe for massive political, economic, and social instability in the developing world. Providing knowledge and modern contraceptive supplies for family planning appeared to be a realistic remedy for reducing rapid population growth and increasing possibilities for economic growth.

The development of population programs (read programs to provide family planning services) has a rocky history. On the international political level, there have been UN Population Conferences every ten years since the first in Rome in 1964. The first conference was basically a scientific meeting of about 600 scientists discussing the global demographic situation. The three subsequent UN meetings in Bucharest, Mexico City, and Cairo were gatherings of government delegations discussing population policy, still with a primary emphasis on reproductive issues. At Bucharest in 1974, many developing countries, along with Communist countries, questioned the usefulness of population programs. Marxists insisted that population growth would not be problematic in a socialist state while developing countries were more focused on the motivation of donors than Marxist-Leninist or Maoist ideologies. In the words of the Indian delegate, they proposed that development was the best contraceptive. They saw pills, intrauterine devices, and condoms as cheap substitutes for aid, investment, and access to markets. While many supporters of the family planning movement were shaken, they continued on…

Charles Keely is Donald G. Herzberg Professor of International Migration and Demography at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.