The Human Population:
Patterns, Processes, and Problematics
Lecture #18: Ch13: Population Policy
Paul Sutton
psutton@du.edu
Department of Geography
University of Denver
John Weeks’ Intro to Population Policy
“In the 1960s and 1970s it was relatively easy to see that the
population of the world was growing too rapidly and that
something needed to be done about it. Things were done about it,
through direct and indirect policies, and so now, in the twentyfirst century, we find that the rate of population growth is
slowing down. But the tremendous momentum built into the
world’s age structure means that a huge number of people are
still being added to the world’s total each day – and this will
probably continue for the rest of your life. In the process, the
implications of population growth and change have grown
increasingly complex, requiring new policies and new
approaches to policy implementation. In this chapter your
demographic perspective will be put to work looking at how
people and nations have tried, and continue to try, to influence
demograpic events. This is an important use to which a
demographic perspective can be put – employing your
understanding of the causes and consequences of population
growth to improve the human condition, including your own.”
Does the world agree on
Population Policy?
•
•
•
•
•
Well……NO.
Some want growth maintained
Some want growth curbed
Some want growth increased
Many see a Population-Environment
connection
What is a Policy?
• In General: A policy is a formalized set of
procedures designed to guide (change?) behavior.
It’s purpose is either to maintain consistency in
behavior or to alter behavior in order to achieve a
specified goal.
• Population Policy: represents a strategy for
achieving a particular pattern of population or
demographic change.
Policy Approach
• Direct (specific):
Reduce Fertility to replacement level.
• Indirect (general):
Increase status of women via education,
empowerment, and access to contraception.
Assessing the Future
• SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess)
• How will fertility change:
– In the United States?
– Globally?
• How will mortality change:
– In the United States?
– In Kenya?
– Globally?
• How will migration change?
• None of these questions are easy to answer
accurately
Establishing a goal
• Demography is usually an intermediate goal
which is believed to influence more idealistic
goals like:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Improved standard of living
Reducing economic inequalities
Promoting gender equality
Eliminating hunger or racial/ethnic tension
Curbing environmental degradation
Preserving international peace
Increasing personal freedom
The Cairo (1994) International
Conference on Population &
Development (ICPD)
• 15 principles of population related goals
aimed at improving economic, cultural, and
social development to improve quality of
life for all people.
Basics of Goal Setting
• Is expected future good or bad?
• If good, how to maintain status quo
• If bad, what and how to change
– Will growth curbe economic development?
– Will age/sex structure undermine economy?
• Policies must be continually evaluated Re their
effectiveness
– Did desired demographic effect occur?
– If demographic effect did occure did desired
ancillary effects occur?
Population Policy in the
st
21
Century
• Fig 13.1 assumes a country or people are aware of
the future, anticipate change, and try to deal with
it.
• Some countries assume tomorrow will be like
today (“traditional”) often they are Pro-Natalist
• Pro-Natalist Policies
– Forbid/outlaw divorce and/or abortion
– Impede progress of women
• Big Problem: Gender inequality
– Are attempts to improve the legal, social, and economic
status of women just more cultural imperialism
The Nations of the World ignore
Demography at their own Peril
• The United Nations Population Division regularly
queries the nations of the world about their
attitude about their population growth.
• More and more governments representing a
growing fraction of the world population are
trying to slow population growth.
• Middle countries (happy with current growth rate)
are most interesting (some happy with low fertility:
U.S. some happy with high fertility: Saudi Arabia)
Government’s view of their country’s birth rate
Retarding Growth
• Why?
– Must stabilize population eventually
– Benefits Economic Development
– Natural Resource limits are looming
• How?
– Increase mortality
– Decrease Fertility
– Influence Migration
Influencing Mortality
• Increasing Mortality
– The lifeboat ethic
– Triage
• Decreasing Mortality
– Usually in tandem with decreasing fertility
The Life Boat Ethic
(often attributed to Garret Hardin)
“The lifeboat ethic is based on the premise that
since a lifeboat holds only so many people and
any more than that will cause the whole boat to
sink, only those with a reasonable chance to
survive (those with low fertility) should be
allowed into the lifeboat. Withholding food and
medical supplies could drastically raise the death
rates in less developed nations and thus provide
a longer voyage for those wealthier nations
already riding in the lifeboat.
………..Bon voyage”
Triage
“Triage is the French word for sorting or picking, and
refers to an anrmy hospital practice of sorting the
wounded into three groups – those who are in
sufficiently good shape that they can survive without
immediate treatment, those who will survive if they are
treated without delay, and those ‘basket cases’ who will
die regardless of what treatment might be applied. As
with the lifeboat ethic , it translates into selectivity in
providing food and economic aid should the day come
when supplies of seach are far less than demand. It
means sending aid only to those countries that show
promise of being able to bring their rates of population
growth under control and abandoning those nations
that are not likely to improve.”
Decreasing Mortality
(why would anyone want to do that it increases population growth )
“Most people probably share the opinion that raising mortality is
better grist for science fiction than for population policy.”
1) How linked are dropping mortality and fertility?
2) Often they are administratively linked via health
care provision in the less developed countries.
3) Infant mortality link with fertility is weak (there
are examples of causation every which way)
Data for Guatemala suggest that it may take at least 2
generations for reductions in infant mortality to have
any influence on fertility.
Influencing Migration
•
•
•
•
Should be easy right?
Easier than promoting Death.
Easier than preventing Birth.
Still, migration is tough to control.
“Immigration may be the sincerest form of
flattery but few countries encourage it.”
• Causes racial, ethnic, and cultural conflict
• Has been dramatically facilitated by
improvements in global transporation and
communication infrastructure
• Immigration to U.S. and Canada a major fraction
of global flow today
• Outmigration from Mexico is a mixed blessing:
Remittances good, Loss of working population
bad.
Immigration History of the U.S.
(this will go on for the next 12 slides)
• Prior to the Civil War immigration was
unrestricted.
– Encouraged by European Death Rate drop
– Free Migration from Europe to North and South
America and Oceania one of the most significant
migration of people across international boundaries in
human history
After the Civil War we started to get our panties
in a bunch about immigration
Immigration of Act of 1882
• Opening of new lands in U.S. plus
European economic woes caused increased
migration after the Civil War
• This law levied a head tax of 50 cents on
each immigrant and blocked the entry of
“… idiots, lunatics, convicts, and people
likely to become public charges.”
Ethnic Exclusion
• 1849 Gold Rush in California created demand for
labor
• Much labor supplied by Chinese immigration
• Chinese worked on Railroad and as strikebreakers
(scabs) at east coast strikes
• U.S. broke a treaty with China and excluded them
from entry to the U.S.
• Chinese exclusion acts lasted from 1882-1943
• Japanese filled gap for some bime but were
specifically excluded in 1924
European Migration
• Mostly Northern and Western Europeans migrated to
U.S. in early stages (98% in 1890)
• Shifted to Southern and Eastern Europeans in about
1890
• Ellis Island formed in 1892
• 1891 law prevented people with diseases, criminals, the
insane (1903), TB (1907)
• In 1917 a literacy requirement was instated which
required that anyone over 16 must be able to read.
• Turn of the century (1900) migrations was astronomical
in numbers and comparable to rates of migration to U.S.
in late 1980’s and early 1990’s
Post World War I
(“Not too tired, not too poor, not too many.”
Oh, and by the way, preferably white europeans)
• 1921 Congress passed “The Quota Law”
(this was the first act to set numerical limits on immigration)
• “limited the number of aliens of any nationality to 3%
of foreign born persons of that nationality who lived in
the U.S. in 1910”
• Example: In 1910 there were 11,498 Bulgarians in the
U.S. Therefore only (.03)*(11,498)= 345 Bulgarians
could migrate to U.S. in 1921
1924 “The Immigration Quota Act”
• Racist ideas of Eugenics were becoming
increasingly popular
• “Nordics {people from northwestern Europe]
were genetically superior to others.”
• Result: Dramatic and increased restrictions to
immigration.
1929 The National Origins Quota
• Attempt to deflect criticism about discriminating nature
of 1924 law.
• Based on ethnic proportions of U.S. population in 1790
(no data existed so they guessed)
• Fixed total of 150,000 immigrants allowed per year
• If 1790 U.S. population was 50% English then 75,000 of
the new immigrants would be English
• All countries allowed a minimum of 100
• Congress could and did overrride the Quotas to allow
European refugees to U.S. in prelude to WWII
(Einstein came, not a bad deal )
1952 The McCarran-Walter Act
(The Immigration and Naturalization act of 1952)
• Spurred on by Anti-Communist McCarthy era
• Migrant candidates assessed for their
“compatibility” to American Society
• Preferences for needed skills, and relatives of
American citizens.
• Canada Mirrored U.S. immigration policy pretty
closely. Why? If they didn’t they would have
been inundated with immigrants.
Contemporary U.S. Immigration Policy
• Ethnic discrimination ended in early 1960’s
• Immigration Act of 1965 ended national origins
Quota method
• Restrictions on total #’s remain, as well as on
restrictions based on Hemisphere of origin.
• Preference system:
–
–
–
–
Relatives of American Citizens
Parents of U.S. citizens are unrestricted
Labor Dept. Certification for Labor Skills a priority
1976: Parents of American child (kid must be 21)
U.S. Immigration Policy created massive
numbers of illegal (undocumented) aliens
•
•
•
•
Rapid Population growth in Mexico
Mexico’s Economy could not absorb growth
1950’s and 1960’s ‘Bracero’ program
1965 ‘Bracero’ Program ended by Cesar Chavez
and other Mexican-Americans along with an
attempt at curbing illegal immigration to U.S.
from Mexico.
1986 Immigration Reform and
Control Act (IRCA)
• U.S. Perception was that our border was “Out Of
Control”.
• Illegal aliens were taking jobs from Americans
• Illegals wee sapping the U.S. Welfare system
• Illegals were Granted “amnesty” and a shot at citizenship
for those living continuously in the U.S. since before
January 1st, 1982
• Made it illegal to hire illegal aliens with fines and
enforcement
• Law aimed at curtailing illegal immigration but had no
(ZERO) impact
1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigrant Responsibility Act
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Shifted focus away from busting employers
Shifted focus toward Border Security
Big walls outside Tiajuana
More Border Patrol agents
2000 illegal immigrants apprehended every day
Effectiveness…………(ZERO)
Catch and release Gate Keeping
Brain Drain (who wins ?)
Immigration Policy & Other Countries
•
•
•
•
Labor is migrating worldwide
Germany ‘receives’ many Turks & Eastern Euros
England receives ~50,000/year from India & Pakistan
Italy (historically outmigration) enacted policy in 1986
to curb immigration
• Denmark gets 15,000 from family re-unification alone
(created laws to prevent this)
• Malaysia ‘received 65,000 Indonesians in 1st 6 months
of the year 2000
• Afghans flood into Pakistan
Policy to control Immigration is
basically an absolute failure
Massey’s
“Perverse Laws of International Immigration”:
– 1) Immigration is easier to start than stop.
– 2) Actions taken to restrict immigration often have the opposite
effect
– 3) Fundamental causes of immigration maybe outside control
of policy makers
– 4) Immigrants understand Immigration better than policy
makers and academics
– 5) Because immigrants are smarter about immigration they are
better able to circumvent policies aimed at stopping them.
Segway to Fertility
(Why does U.S. withdraw family planning funding?)
“In the final analysis most attempts to limit immigration
are motivated less by a desire to limit population growth
in general, and more to limit the entrance of certain
kinds of people into the country (no matter what country
we are talking about). The greater the social and cultural
differences between sending and receiving societies, the
more likely it is that attempts will be made to slow down
the pace of immigration. It is easy to conclude, then, that
the most effective means by which you can retard
growth is to nip it in the bud – to limit fertility.”
Limiting Fertility
• Definitely the best way to slow growth
• Definitely the most complex problem
• 3 Preconditions to fertility decline (Ansley Coale)
– 1) Acceptance of calculated choice as a valid element in
fertilty (secularism ?)
– 2) Perception of advantages to reduced fertility on an
individual basis (desire for lower fertility)
– 3) Availability, knowledge, and mastery of techniques of
fertility control (filling the unmet need gap)
• (Note: most policies focus on #3)
Family Planning
• Provide each woman with the technological
ability to have only as many children as she wants
by providing information, services, and appliances
(including abortion and sterilization)
• Often provided today in tandem with HIV/AIDS
prevention info etc.
• Key Assumption was: ‘Give them access to birth
control and they will use it.’ (Not always true)
• Sex and reproduction are politically and socially
sensitive issues. Selling family planning as part of
Health care was a good Public Relations Practice
Spread of Family Planning
“In the mid-1960’s, developing countries began to adopt policies to support family
planning as a means of slowing population growth. By the late 1960’s, family
planning had become a worldwide social movement that involved international
organizations such as the the United Nations Fund for Population Activities
(UNFPA), government agencies such as the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID), nonprofit organizations such as the
affiliates of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and a host of
individuals, many with backgrounds in medicine and public health.”
• 1965 21 countries supported family planning
• 1974 86 countries supported family planning
• 1989 123 countries supported family planning (91% of world’s
population)
• NOTE: Family Planning Programs goal was to eliminate
“Unmet Need”; coercion was never, ever, part of their
program.