Chapter 13
Coping With Demographic
Change

Chapter Outline
• Policies Designed To Influence The
Transitions
• World Population Conferences As
Policy Tools
• Population Policy In The Twenty-first
Century— Managing The Transitions

Chapter Outline
• What Is The Population Policy Of The
United States?
• What Lies Ahead?

Coping
• Three-stage process:

Understanding the fact that unfolding events represent a potential (or real) problem.


Establishing the motivation to do something about the problem.
Generating the means to do something about it.

World Population
Conferences
• 1974 - produced a World Population Plan of Action.
• 1984 - The U.S. imposed a “global gag rule” with respect to use of funds for anything having to do with abortion.
• 1994 produced a Programme of Action emphasizing the importance of women’s social and reproductive rights.

Programme of Action
• Proposed that the mortality transition be managed by:
 lowering infant, child, and maternal mortality
 bringing the AIDS pandemic under control
• Without AIDS, it is projected that the world would have half a billion more people by mid-century.

Lifeboat Ethic
• Based the premise that a lifeboat holds only so many people and any more than that will cause the whole boat to sink.
• Withholding food and medical supplies could raise death rates in less-developed nations and provide a longer voyage for wealthier nations already riding in the lifeboat.

Triage
• Sending aid to countries that show promise of being able to bring their rates of population growth under control.
• Refers to an army practice of sorting the wounded into three groups:

Those who can survive without immediate treatment.


Those who will survive if they are treated without delay.
Those who will die regardless.

Formulating a Population
Policy

The World With and
Without AIDS
• Between 2000 and 2050 AIDS will be responsible for the deaths of 278 million more people than would have otherwise died.
• Were it not for AIDS, the projected population in the year 2050 would actually be half a billion more people.

Factors That Influence the Decline of Fertility
1.
Educating women.
2.
Providing women with access to the paid labor force.
3.
Legalizing the equality in status of males and females.

Factors That Influence the Decline of Fertility
4.
Legalizing abortion and/or making contraceptives freely available.
5.
Raising the standard of living, while making housing and major consumer items difficult to obtain.

Secrets of Successful
Family Programs
• Easy accessibility of services
• Community-based approach increases continuation rates.
• High-quality services increase the prevalence rate.
• A greater variety of methods increases the prevalence rate.

Secrets of Successful
Family Programs
• Mass-media messages increase the prevalence rate.
• Informal discussions by users with nonusers increases the prevalence rate.

Perverse Laws Of
International Migration
• Immigration is a lot easier to start than it is to stop.
• Actions taken to restrict immigration often have the opposite effect.
• The fundamental causes of immigration may be outside the control of policy makers.

Perverse Laws Of
International Migration
• Immigrants understand immigration better than politicians and academicians.
• Because they understand immigration better than policy makers, immigrants are often able to circumvent policies aimed at stopping them.

Age Structure of Different
World Regions in 2025

Age Structure of Different
World Regions in 2025