Asia-Pacific Population Journal - Volume 5, Issue 2, 1990

With the development of its family planning programme, China has achieved great success since the 1970s in slowing the growth of its population. This is evident in the rapid decline in fertility: the total fertility rate (TFR) declined from the 1960s average of 5.68 to 4.0 in the 1970s and to only 2.46 for the first eight years of the 1980s.

In the early 1980s the Government of Nepal set a demographic target of reducing the current fertility rate of about six children per woman of childbearing age to 2.5 by the end of the century. To achieve this target, increasing attention has been given to implementing family planning programmes both in the public and private sectors. The key questions are: What level of family planning practice will be required to reach this national target? Through what compositions of contraceptive method use can the fertility target be achieved? What might this effort cost?

One of the potential benefits of family planning programmes in developing countries is that limiting family size can increase women’s ability to participate in productive activities, which in turn can contribute to the economic wellbeing of the family. This argument is based on the assumption that reproductive and productive activities compete for a woman’s limited time and hence women with a small number of children to rear are able to engage more in economic activities than those with larger numbers of children. Thus, the prevalence of small families should be desirable to both the families and the Government. Despite this, however, little is known about the impact of reduced family size on women’s participation in the labour force.

Famine is defined as widespread food shortage leading to a significant rise in regional mortality (Blix, 1971). Historically, major causes of famine have been natural calamities. However, in modern times, when a natural disaster causes insufficient production of food, political and social factors play an important role in determining whether famine becomes widespread and who is affected (Alamgir, 1980; Langsten, 1985; Sen, 1980).

Because humankind is on the threshold of the twenty-first century, there is considerable speculation about what the future will look like. It is evident that not only will the population continue to grow rapidly in the future, but technological innovations and inventions will also multiply rapidly. Indeed, it appears as if population and technology rely on one another for their sustenance and growth.