Asia-Pacific Population Journal - Volume 1, Issue 3, 1986

Although population has been a part of development work for more than three decades and one most clearly affecting women, it is only during recent years that women’s concerns and their active involvement in the development process have received the attention due to the “other half’ of the world’s population.

Countries in the Asian and the Pacific region provide an interesting panorama of legal systems and the dynamics of developmental change. For demographers, social scientists and health lawyers, this panorama offers not only rich material for research but also a challenge to find meaningful solutions to the many and varied developmental problems of these countries. Increasingly, it is being realized that legislation is an important tool of developmental change and this article examines how law can influence population and developmental planning in the Asian and the Pacific region.

One promising approach to encouraging contraceptive acceptance and practice has been initiated by a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Thailand, the Population and Community Development Association (PDA). Community-level incentives, directed to the village as a unit and to individuals as isolates, are thought to put less direct pressure on the individual. In addition, the locus of power in such plans may be placed at the community level, as opposed to some higher administrative stratum far removed from the people the programme was meant to serve.

The joint-extended household in which married sons co-reside with their parents and one another is not idealized by Sri Lankan society the way it is by various cultures of the Indian subcontinent. However, it cannot be said that the extended family or kin group is unimportant. It is central in the determination of marriage partners, in determining the education of children, and in caring for the economic welfare of its members (Nyrop et al., 1971 Chapter 7).