Population policing is one of the most controversial issues facing the world today and has become a battleground between the north and the south that has often become marred in power politics and intellectual. Given the breadth and context of the debate, it is clear that writing a paper on the issue is no easy job. This paper will interrogation the idea of population policing from on multiple levels. First we shall consider the whole population control enterprise from the perspective of scholars such as Dr Jacqueline Kasun, Nicholas Eberstadt, Julian Simon, Amatya Sen and others who don’t think the world has a population problem but a distribution and consumerist problem. Secondly the paper shall analyse current population policies in developing countries such as Zimbabwe, Nigeria, India, and others and see how much they are addressing the potential causes of population growth which to a greater extend relate to women’s disempowerment. Finally the paper will posit the possible solutions to population growth basing especially in the empowerment of women, development and redistribution giving evidence that all population success stories stem from expanding the freedom of women (and indeed man especially in poor households). Expanding the freedom of women can be loosely synonymous to empowerment but has more to do with giving women more choices over issues affecting their lives especially in reproduction while a population policy can be any measure meant to directly determine the present or future size of a place or country’s population.
Instead of taking the issues of population policing and control as given it might be necessary to look at its development and the controversies that it has led to among politicians and academics. Although population policies have been in existence in the world over the millennia Malthus can be regarded as the man who brought population control consciousness to the modern world. Malthusian and neo-Malthusian population policies have however been criticized from many fronts especially because of claims about their racist, elitist and Darwinian elements. Unfortunately the current global trend tends to be still informed by Malthus’ ideas in its orientation. One interesting question that has been asked by some scholars is whether population growth is in fact a problem as claimed by anti natalist scholars such as Paul Ehrlich. The claim that more resources would be needed to satisfy a growing population might be obvious but no one can accurately determine the carrying capacity of the planet earth and it is not clear which factors are to be used in the determination between food, resources or living space but it seems clear that all factors are too relative and most importantly no case can be scientifically made for overpopulation with respect to all three variables. Dr. Osterfeld, Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana, concludes that although there are now more people in the world than ever before, "by any meaningful measure the world is actually becoming relatively less populated." Nicholas Eberstadt (1997) ironically challenges current “depopulation” policies claiming that if current trends were maintained or intensified the world would head for a social, economic and financial crisis mostly because of disproportionate demographic distribution structures and shortage of people especially as consumers. Without taking this debate too far it is important to at least note that claims for population growth problems are clumsy, ill-founded and controversial.
The idea of population policing and control might however not be a bad idea at least if it is implemented in a reasonable and holistic way taking into consideration the interests of those involved and affected by it especially women. The focus of population policies in developing world and indeed the whole world has been mercilessly targeted on women through family planning programmes such as sterilization, forced abortion, family planning tablets, and other things. In China for example it has need reported that the one child policy imposed on the population has negatively affected women more than men since women have been sore victims of forced abortions and forced sterilizations. In other countries such as Honduras and Bangladesh there are claims that cases of forced sterilizations were so rampant in the 1990s while in India the situation was even worsened by the Caste system’s relegation of women especially in rural areas. Thus instead of extending the freedoms of woman, at least some of the population policies practiced around the world have been used as an attack on the female race.
Although the current rhetoric especially since the Cairo Population Conference of 1994 is that women rights is at the center of current population policy position at global level, Amatya Sen is skeptical claiming that women’s rights are being reduced to reproductive issues and this tends to put the real issues on the sideline. Even where some efforts are being made to expand the freedom of women, the gains are not really significant and relevant because the purpose is not to really benefit women but to reduce their effects on population growth.
Some feminists and other scholars have pointed out that the real issue in the world is not population control per ser but the control of certain populations. As Claire (2009), guest-blogging at Feministe recently, asked, "Has science ever actually defined the number of people the world and it's resources can support, or is this fear of a "population bomb" about something else, more to do with which babies are being born than how many are being born?". In Singapore in the 1990s while the general orientation was to reduce the national population growth rate through various ways, incentives were given to middle class and working class women to have more children. In order to encourage educated women to have more children, tax incentives were given to mothers with professional or university degrees and three or more children. Children of these women were also given priority in enrolling in the best schools. Younger mothers without secondary school degrees and fewer than three children were offered $4,700 toward purchase of public housing if they accept sterilization (Encarta 2008).
It has been noted that generally throughout the world the tendency is to discourage poor people and minority ethnic groups to have children while encouraging the richer families to have more children. In Nigeria it has been reported that the government seem to be stricter on population control against specific minority ethnic groups than the dominant groups. Probably the logic would be that rich families are capable of sufficiently provide for their children as compared to poor people but this raises a lot of questions. Indeed no official position has been spelled out to this effect in most countries but it is not so difficult to discover this tendency in practice. Unfortunately as already pointed out the problem in the world today especially if considered in the context of the environment, pollution, shortages of food and other resources as well as increasing poverty has very little (if any) to do with the developing world’s growing population although all population control policies are bases on these myths. It has been reported that a child born in the US consumes more resources than 30 children born in rural Indian or anywhere in the developing world. The point really is that the problems in the world today are caused mostly by the obsessive western consumerism such that even if the world population was to be constant at 6 billion or even be reduced by a few billions and all those people had same consumerist tendencies as Americans, the world would be overpopulated still. The consumption explosion in the West, especially in the United States, is much more dangerous than the population 'explosion' in terms of putting pressure on natural resources...and yet the poor of developing countries...are now being blamed for the destruction of the environment (Encarta 2008). Unfortunately very little is ever heard about the need to reduce the continuing and accelerating western consumerist behavior but the whole world is being bombarded with how very much the world is overpopulated by blacks, Asians, Latinos and others. In the end a package of policies and measures are put in place that permanently destroy the well being of women and the real issues are left out.
The economic, socio-cultural and political empowerment of women has been considered the most effective (if not the only effective) way of reducing population growth in developing countries and indeed the whole world. It has been noted by some scholars that in China the general improvement in the standards of living across the board had more impact on the population growth rate than the controversial “one child policy” because real gains were made in the 1970s and early 80s before the one child policy was in place or was not yet being forcibly implemented (Encarta 2008). Almost the same issue has been at the root of India’s failure to reduce its population growth rate satisfactorily. Instead of empowering women through education, economic empowerment, proper health services and different family planning options the focus in some countries has been of family planning through sterilization, child spacing tablets and other such methods. When applying for government loans, or jobs people were told that their chances of receiving such aids would be increased if they could produce a certificate of sterilization. Fortunately, in recent years, it appears that many Indians are aware of the negative effects of the traditional policies and are striving for a change in the system. Taking heed of the recommendations put forth in the 1994 UN Conference on Population and Development, India has shifted attention away from the strict promotion of contraceptive measures and is working on the development of women’s economic, educational and social welfare which will give women more control over their own bodies and indirectly curb population growth. India put forth a “New Population Plan” (NPP), hoping that by the year 2010, the average total fertility rate will fall from the early 90’s figure of 3.4 to around the replacement rate of 2.1. In order to achieve this goal, the NPP will make strides in improving reproductive health: it will allow universal access to contraceptives and promote greater education on contraception, train more people to safely aid in the birth of children, require a formal registration of all marriages and births, maintain and enforce the minimum age of marriage at 18, and strive to provide primary education for more citizens.
It has been claimed that Zimbabwe is one example of a success story in Africa’s Sub-Region in terms of reducing population growth rate and that this is mostly because of the widespread improvement in education, healthy delivery services and widespread family planning support systems especially in the 1980s and 90s. Other examples include the current official policy that a woman can only get paid maternity leave for the first three babies alone.
In the fight against population increase it is important probably to deal with the real (not supposed) causes of population increase. It has been reiterated that when asked most women want to have fewer children (after all child birth is no funny experience and you tend to age with every conception) but there are factors which ultimately lead to them having more children. One important aspect is women’s lack of power over their reproduction. It has been noted that providing women with accessible and cheap family planning services wouldn’t serve the intended purpose since after all it is the husband who often decides how many children to have. Its even worse in cases when the woman is sterilized (willingly or unwillingly) without the consent of the husband with cases in India and other countries of women being divorced for “infertility” after going through sterilization. It is also true that in most developing countries a family is likely to continue until they have a male child because of the different values put on male and female children. Unfortunately the world population is generally skewed against men and this paints a bleak picture for those calling for population control especially as long as “they” want more of male than female children. In Iran population growth rates have been reduced through various
Another important yet neglected issue relates to the economic logic of having more children in poor households. As long as children are considered economic asserts (as opposed to a liability as in the developed world) then the world will continue to see more births maybe at an accelerated. Having more children is also associated with higher infant and general mortality rates because parents wouldn’t be sure which one or how many of their children would die or survive. This is also associated with the desire for old age security which in developing countries is in children who are expected to take care of their parents in old age because of lack of other forms of social security to that effect. It has also been recognized that children are a form of pride and measure of wealth in some developing communities hence the desire to have as many as possible especially male children.
However overemphasizing the controversies surrounding population control policies and practices wouldn’t be good nor even necessary. Thus it is important to note that real gains have been made in population policy programming despite the fact that some scholars still think that its far from the ideal. A good example of ideal population policy can be noted in Iran were both partners are compelled to go through family planning sessions before a marriage certificate is awarded to them. On top of that family planning services are readily available at affordable prices and this has led to better informed family planning decisions leading to a significant reduction in the overall national population rate. Recent evidence from China has also shown that if women and people in general are given proper guidance and support with freedom in terms of choosing their family sizes they tend to opt for smaller families. What is important is for them to have good reason for not having too many children and this is usually correlated with standards of living, women education, women economic empowerment, women power over their reproduction and other issues.
Thus this paper sought to bring all the relevant issues in the present day population policy debate with special focus on the expansion of women’s freedom. It seems clear that debates about population policy can only be properly understood within the context of global geo-politics and western socio-political interests. Other debates such as the carrying capacity of the earth, western consumerism which degrades the environment, the relationship between poverty and population growth, are very pertinent issues that this paper tried to reflect on. However it also became lucid that the extension and expansion of women’s freedom is the central issue in population policing and programming. Evidence around the world reinforce this perspective.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Eberstadt, N. (1998). "Demography and International Relations," in The Washington Quarterly, Spring, pp. 33-52.
Simon, J.L. (1990). Population Matters, New Brunswick (NJ): Transaction Publishers.
Eberstadt N. (1994). Feminist population Policy. www.feministre.us/blog/archives/population . (accessed on 5 October 2009).
Rowley, J. (2008). "Population Pressure." Microsoft® Encarta® 2006 [CD]. Microsoft Corporation.
United Nations (2006). World population Policies. UN Publications. N.Y.
Osterfeld ,W. (2004). Population Myth. Sage Publications. CA.
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