This timely study examines fertility rates and their trends and determinants in less-developed countries by testing an empirical, interdisciplinary model of the fertility transition. In light of the current official position of the United States on population and development, the policy implications of the study are timely. According to some experts, interrupting the spiral of rapid growth and attendant economic and ecological deterioration now rivals nuclear disarmament in importance on the international agenda. Among the questions investigated include: Are there identifiable traits for developing nations that have reduced fertility? Has development become the best contraceptive? Have some development strategies been more conducive to lowering fertility? Do family planning programs have significant impacts on fertility?

This book addresses nine relevant questions: Will population growth reduce the growth rate of per capita income because it reduces the per capita availability of exhaustible resources? How about for renewable resources? Will population growth aggravate degradation of the natural environment? Does more rapid growth reduce worker output and consumption? Do rapid growth and greater density lead to productivity gains through scale economies and thereby raise per capita income? Will rapid population growth reduce per capita levels of education and health? Will it increase inequality of income distribution? Is it an important source of labor problems and city population absorption? And, finally, do the economic effects of population growth justify government programs to reduce fertility that go beyond the provision of family planning services?

Commemorating the first decade of operation of the UNFPA, this collection of 17 essays explores interrelationships between various aspects of population and socioeconomic factors including population redistribution, population quality, fertility regulation, and food production and security.

This book examines the nature and significance of the impact of population growth on the weIl-being of developing countries-in particular, the effects on economic growth, education, health, food supply, housing, poverty, and the environment. In addition, because family planning programmes often significantly affect population growth, the study examines the impacts of family planning on fertility and health, and the human rights implications of family planning programmes. In considering the book's conclusions about the impact of population growth on development, four caveats should be noted. First, the effects of population growth vary from place to place and over time. Thus, blanket statements about overall effects often cannot be made. Where possible, the authors note the contexts in which population effects are strongest and weakest. Second, all of the outcomes examined in this book are influenced by factors other than population growth. Moreover, the impact of population growth may itself vary according to the presence or absence of other factors. This again makes bl anket statements about the effects of population growth difficult. Throughout the chapters, the authors try to identify other relevant factors that influence the outcomes we discuss or that influence the impact of population growth on those outcomes.

Allan and Anne Findlay argue that a nation's human population is a vital resource in the development process. Changes in its composition - increased life expectancy combined with a falling birth rate, for example - can have profound effects upon a society. Warfare and mass migration of male workers also have long-reaching effects on those left behind. The rapid growth of Third World populations has often incorrectly been identified as the major force preventing more rapid economic development. Population pressure has been known to generate technological breakthroughs. Their final chapter examines family planning programmes, and concludes by asking who benefits most from population policies and questioning the right of developed countries to advocate family planning programmes for Third World nations.

Monograph of essays on the relationship between population growth and economic development in developing countries - deals with the employment and educational aspects, health and sociological aspects, food and agricultural aspects, migration and urbanization, environmental and financial aspects, etc. Of the population explosion problem. Diagrams, graphs, references and statistical tables.

Until the early to mid-1970s, social scientists in the fields of population and development were largely going their own ways. Demographers relied almost exclusively on demographic transition theory as their para digm for understanding the role of development in population change and fertility decline. Conversely, most development economists and other specialists were certainly aware of the constraints placed upon development objectives by population growth. However, the main de velopment theories paid little attention to population and the implica tions of population growth for development. Indeed it was not until after the World Population Conference in Bucharest in 1974 that the interaction of population and development became a serious and pur posive theme for social scientific study. Accordingly, since about the mid-1970s, an extensive literature in the field of population and develop ment has been generated. And in 1975, under the auspices of The Popu lation Council, the journal Population and Development Review was found ed, a journal which in the past decade has developed into the premier publication in the world for work in this area. But our understanding of development as it refers to change in Third World countries remained fragmented. Moreover, our understanding of the linkages and interac tions between population and development was very limited. It is in this regard that Ozzie Simmons's Perspectives on Development and Population Growth in the Third World will certainly have an impact.