COMMENTARY

Getting family planning and population back on track

Malcolm Pottsa

After a generation of partial neglect, renewed attention is being paid to population and voluntary family
planning. Realistic access to family planning is a prerequisite for women’s autonomy. For the individual,
family, society, and our fragile planet, family planning has great power.

countries, such as Kenya,8 stalled. The policy community

F or policy makers and for practitioners, the reward
and satisfaction of family planning is that it is an
inextricable mixture of helping individuals achieve their
paid less and less attention to population as a factor in
development, in resilience to climate change and to the
reproductive goals while also maintaining an aware- long-term sustainability of the global economy. The
ness of the multiple ways in which demography has urgent need for new family planning initiatives, particu-
determined our past and will inevitably shape our larly in sub-Saharan Africa, was set aside. Today, there
future. Voluntary family planning programs since the are approximately 424 million African children aged 14
1960s have helped 48% of the world’s population achieve or under. In 2050, Africa could have 770 million children,
replacement-level fertility or below.1 (Replacement-level allowing a great deal of demographic momentum to
fertility is the fertility rate at which each generation has build up.1 It is questionable whether some economies in
only enough children to replace itself, and thus the sub-Saharan Africa will be able to benefit from the
population eventually stops growing. This is generally demographic dividend in the way that much of Asia did.9
when the total fertility rate [TFR] is about 2.1 children These were costly mistakes that will help shape the
per woman, although it can be at higher levels in remainder of the 21st century.
countries with high mortality rates.2) After providing an overview of global population
Without this reduction in family size, the number projections and describing exactly what is at stake, this
of people living on less than US$1.00 a day would not article reviews the evolution of the population and
have been halved,3 improvements in education would development debate and the resultant family planning
have been slower (such as was shown in Thailand4), policies from the 1960s to present day. In particular, it
and there would not have been such a rapid decline in argues that while ICPD was a critical milestone in the
infant and maternal mortality. In many Asian coun- history of population and development as well as in
tries, the rapid change in population structure from the the history of women’s rights, it was also a turning
introduction of voluntary family planning led to a point at which the focus was unfortunately taken off
‘‘demographic dividend,’’ which helped lift millions of of voluntary family planning, interrupting an earlier
people out of poverty.5 The demographic dividend is
decline in fertility.
the rapid economic growth that may result when a
country transitions from high to low birth and death
rates and the subsequent change in the age structure of
BIG NUMBERS
the population—the smaller young dependent popula- Global population projections to 2100 from the UN
tion with a larger working-age population translates Population Division present some profoundly different
into fewer people to support.6 scenarios (Figure). The high and low population
For a variety of reasons, which will be touched variants differ by half a child above or below the
on shortly, following the 1994 United Nations (UN) medium variant. Virtually all biologists and climatol-
International Conference on Population and Develop- ogists, along with an increasing number of sensible
ment (ICPD) in Cairo, family planning budgets fell.7 The economists, would agree that a world with 6.8 billion
fertility decline that had begun in some high-fertility people in the year 2100 (low-variant projection) would
a
be more likely to be biologically sustainable, healthier,
University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health, Berkeley, CA,
USA. more educated, and less violent than one with 16.6
Correspondence to Malcolm Potts ([email protected]). billion (high-variant projection).

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Getting family planning and population back on track www.ghspjournal.org

FIGURE. Global Population Estimates and Projections, 1800–2100

Data from the United Nations.1

Virtually all Nearly all global population growth in the countries together have about 898 million people.1
the world’s future will be in the less developed countries.1 In 2100, the medium UN population projection for
population Those countries can be divided further into these least developed countries is 2.9 billion, or as
growth in the 2 groups: countries such as Bangladesh and many as there were people in the whole world in
future will be in Kenya that have a reasonable chance of achieving 1960. The high estimate is 4.3 billion, or equivalent
less developed replacement-level fertility in the foreseeable future, to the size of the world’s total population in 1980.1
countries. and those countries that still have a high birth rate. Each of the 3 projections in the Figure is
Since the UN first identified 25 least developed possible. Which one the world follows will shape
countries in 1971,10 only 1 country with a the world our children and grandchildren inherit
population of over 1 million (Botswana) has and will play an immense role in determining
graduated to the ‘‘developing’’ country category11 global poverty, hunger, gender equality, and
(and the list included 48 countries as of June environmental sustainability outcomes. Thinking
2013). The least developed countries often have in terms of half a child may seem a bit laughable,
corrupt governments; the status of women is but it emphasizes that the future well-being of
commonly abysmal in these countries; and rapid the planet turns on a relatively small change in
population growth in them is typically associated average family size.
with a large number of poorly educated young men Considerations of population and family
with few job opportunities—a recipe for vio- planning have been pushed off the policy agenda
lence and conflict.12 Currently, the least developed for many reasons, among which are religious and

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Getting family planning and population back on track www.ghspjournal.org

political conservatism, donor fatigue, and compe- ‘‘Contraception is the best development.’’ These 2
tition with funding for HIV/AIDS. Some econo- polar opposites have deep roots.
mists assert that family planning programs are When the U.S. Agency for International
unnecessary because if couples want fewer Development (USAID) first received support for
children, the free market will solve their problems. international family planning in the 1960s, many
Unfortunately, family planning is not a free demographers and economists were wedded to
market but one beset with biases and barriers the standard ‘‘development is the best contra-
that are not based on evidence. Population and ceptive’’ explanation of the demographic transi-
family planning were regarded as too controver- tion. Based on the history of Europe and North
sial to include as targets in the first round of the America, it was held that as deaths rates fell
Millennium Development Goals, and they con- and as income and education improved, birth
tinue to be excluded from many discussions of rates always fell. Couples, it was argued, made
climate change, conservation, and food security. a rational decision to have fewer children.
For example, the 2013 annual Water for Food Socioeconomic change, it was asserted, was both
Conference, attended by more than 450 people necessary and sufficient for fertility decline:
from 24 counties and supported by the Bill & family size would fall ‘‘with great effectiveness’’
Melinda Gates Foundation, provided no space to without the ‘‘assistance of modern contraceptive
discuss how family planning might alter the techniques.’’18 The first family planning pro-
demand side for food.13 grams that USAID supported were dismissed as
Population and family planning also have been ‘‘quackery’’ and ‘‘wishful thinking.’’19
pushed off the agenda due to sheer enormity of the The alternative perspective was captured in a
numbers. It demands an almost impossible statement by Reimert Ravenholt, physician and
intellectual and emotional effort to try and epidemiologist and the first director of USAID’s
visualize what 16.6 billion means—counting population programs in the 1960s:
1 person per second would take 33 years to register It seems reasonable to believe that when millions of
just 1 billion people. In Paul Slovic’s powerful women throughout the world need only reproduce
phrase, we are ‘‘numbed by numbers.’’ Slovic, an when they choose, then the many intense family
experimental psychologist, asked a sample of and social problems generated by unplanned,
Americans how much money they would donate unwanted and poorly cared for children will be
to help an individual hungry child in Africa. He greatly ameliorated and the now acute problems of
identified such a child with a name, a photograph, too rapid population will be reduced to manageable
and brief biography. The average donation offered proportions.20
was US$2.00. However, when Slovic told exactly
the same story, but added that there were a million This pragmatic approach emphasized access
other hungry children, people donated less. When to modern contraception and the need to remove
statistics were presented without a human face, the many non-evidence-based barriers to family
people gave the least. ‘‘Grim statistics,’’ Slovic planning.21–23 When contraception and abortion
observes, ‘‘themselves paralyze us into inaction.’’14 were illegal in the United States, it took 58 years
Unless you are totally numbed by numbers, (1842 to 1900) for the TFR to fall from 6 to
then the UN population projections are stagger- 3.5 children per woman.24 When modern family
ing predictions. Suddenly a half-child more or planning was available in Thailand, a similar
half-child less becomes of existential importance. transition occurred in a mere 8 years (1969 to
Does voluntary family planning offer a proven 1977). In Bangladesh, and to some extent in
way to ensure that half-child difference? Brazil, Indonesia, and other countries, realistic
access to family planning brought the birth rate Two models of
down ahead of major socioeconomic improve- fertility decline
MODELS OF FERTILITY DECLINE have divided
ments. The same thing has happened in Addis
It has long been recognized that rapid population Ababa, Ethiopia, with a TFR of 1.5, which is policy makers:
growth can hold back socioeconomic development, unique among African capital cities.25 We associ- ‘‘Development
but policy makers remain divided on the weight to ate the Islamic Republic of Iran with conservative is the best
be given to family planning programs.15–17 For a ways, but once women had better access to contraceptive’’ vs.
long time, family planning policies have been split family planning, the TFR actually fell more ‘‘Contraception
between those who hold that ‘‘Development is the rapidly than in China—and without a one-child is the best
best contraceptive,’’ and those who think that policy.26 Interestingly it needs to be recognized development.’’

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Getting family planning and population back on track www.ghspjournal.org

that the TFR in China had fallen from 6.5 to 2.5 conundrum in the late 1970s. Under her leader-
as the result of largely voluntary family planning, ship, in 1976 Dr. Karan Singh, then Minister for
even before the one-child policy was introduced. Health and Family Planning, released the follow-
Although the standard model of the demo- ing statement36:
graphic transition has come under increasing
It is clear that simply to wait for education and
academic criticism,27–29 it remains influential
economic development to bring about a drop in
in many policy environments.30 Only last year,
fertility is not a practical solution. The very increase in
Jamison et al. wrote, ‘‘Families choose to have
population makes economic development slow and
fewer children when they realize that the mortality
more difficult of [an] achievement. The time factor is
environment has changed.’’31 However, hetero-
pressing and the population so formidable, that we
sexual couples have intercourse hundreds of times
have to get out of this vicious circle through direct
more frequently than is necessary to conceive even
assault upon this problem … Where [an Indian]
a large family.32,33 Therefore, the default position state legislature, in the exercise of its own powers,
No woman can for couples is a large family. No woman can decides that the time is right and it is necessary to pass
choose to have ‘‘choose’’ to have fewer children until she is given legislation for compulsory sterilization, it may do so.
fewer children the means and information to separate sex from
until she has the childbearing. In Niger, the ‘‘mortality environ- The coercive family planning measures that
means and ment’’ has changed dramatically (between 1990 Indira Gandhi introduced were among the unac-
information to and 2012, the infant mortality rate fell from ceptable episodes of forceful family planning in
separate sex from 137/1,000 live births to 63/1,000), but the TFR our modern history. This step lost her the next
34 election. It seems unlikely, however, that she
childbearing. remains at 7.6—the highest in the world.
Child marriage is a human rights abuse, mainly would have gone out of her way to introduce
concentrated in the least developed countries. unpopular policies if she had believed that
Rolling back the age of marriage is also a development was the only way to lower the birth
demographic imperative. Where child marriage is rate. What she did not understand was that if you
widespread, women will never be able to manage respect women and remove the unjustified
childbearing unless the age of the first birth is barriers to family panning then family size would
35
Investing in girls’ radically increased. Investing in girls and young fall, even without significant socioeconomic pro-
education is a women is a non-negotiable part of any strategy to gress. Had she known that, then she might not
critical part of any slow population growth and to enable the least have felt compelled to introduce coercive policies.
strategy to slow developed counties to move forward. Pilot studies
population in Northern Nigeria show it is possible to keep 70% THE ICPD: REALITY AND MYTH
growth. to 80% of girls in secondary school in a region
where only 4% of girls previously entered second- The Programme of Action adopted at the ICPD
ary school and none had completed their secondary balanced a realistic concern for confronting rapid
population growth with an eloquent statement of
education (personal communication with Daniel
voluntary family planning as a human right37:
Perlman, Research Medical Anthropologist, Uni-
versity of California, Berkeley, Bixby Center for Principle 4: Advancing gender equality and equity
Population, Health & Sustainability, and Co- and the empowerment of women, and the
Director, Bixby/Fogarty International Center Pop- elimination of all kinds of violence against women,
ulation and Health Program, Nigeria, 2013). and ensuring women’s ability to control their
Bringing such programs to scale could require own fertility, are cornerstones of population and
billions of dollars a year. Reinserting the popula- development-related programmes.
tion factor where it belongs in the family planning
equation will give us the confidence and the Principle 5: Population-related goals and policies
evidence base to think big. are integral parts of cultural, economic and social
development, the principle aim of which is to
improve the quality of life of all people.
TRAGIC EPISODES OF COERCION
However, a different perspective was widely
Paradoxically, if development really is the best
promoted after ICPD. Hodgson and Watkins
contraceptive, then we have to ask: What will
describe how38:
happen in a situation where rapid population
growth is undermining socioeconomic progress? … a vision of fertility decline as a necessary
Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi faced this consequence, not a cause, of large societal changes

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Getting family planning and population back on track www.ghspjournal.org

was to provide the frame that feminists would Ravenholt continued to insist that in-
modify for later use at the 1994 Cairo conference. centives were not only unnecessary but also
inappropriate.
Poignantly, such commentators were espous-
ing the very paradigm that drove Gandhi to
GETTING BACK ON TRACK
implement the most loathsome abuses in the
history of family planning. We live in a complex, interconnected world
Another group of advocates following the facing unique problems that, if not tackled,
ICPD wanted to push population off the table in could cause great pain,44 or even threaten a
order to secure what they believed would be collapse of civilization as we know it.45 Can we
greater funding for the broader goals of women’s create a world that lives within ecologically
empowerment.39 The late Joan Dunlop, a power- sustainable limits? Can we avoid ever-growing
ful leader in the group, explained in an interview inequities between the least developed countries
with author Michelle Goldberg40: and the rest of the world? Can we create a more
stable, less violent world? Family planning is Family planning is
What we wanted to do was, rather, simply [not]* only one factor in answering these existential one essential
throw the baby out with the bathwater; we wanted questions, but family planning is a prerequisite solution, albeit not
to redirect the money. We knew there were huge for any solution. the only one, to
streams of money going into contraceptive develop- The Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) partner- solving some
ment, and we wanted that money to go in a ship, with the goal of reaching 120 million of the world’s
different direction. additional women with voluntary access to family complex
The baby was indeed thrown out with the bath planning within the next 6 years,46 is an problems.
water. Dunlop’s desire to divert the ‘‘huge streams important step toward a more balanced and
of money going into contraceptive development’’ evidence-based approach to family planning and
was a classic case of being numbed by numbers. population after a generation of relative inactivity.
These ‘‘huge streams of money’’ that Joan Dunlop Family planning saves maternal and infant
dreamed of diverting to the needs of women had lives. It has reduced maternal deaths by 40% in
never exceeded $15 million in any one year prior the past 20 years.47 A child conceived within
to ICPD.41 The goal of helping women needed a 6 months of a prior birth is 60% more likely to die
than a child whose conception was spaced by
budget of billions of dollars.
2 years.47 Family planning can trigger economic
The strategy to ‘‘move the money in a different
development, and it can assist in both mitigation
direction’’ benefited from framing everything that
of and adaptation to climate change.48 Family
happened in international family planning prior to
planning is an investment that pays for itself in
ICPD as intrinsically coercive. Dunlop and others
reduced health and educational costs, yet budgets
began a viral myth that is encapsulated in a book
are not commensurate to its impact.49 Slowing
called Fatal Misconceptions by Matthew Connelly.
birth rates through voluntary family planning can
Connelly engages in a systematic attempt to
preempt conflict and political instability.50 Family
rewrite history to fit the ideology that all family
planning is listening to what women want, not
planning programs are coercive.42 However, even telling them what to do. An estimated 47,000
Connelly was unable to verbally tar and feather deaths from unsafe abortion occur each year51—
Ravenholt, the charismatic advocate of voluntary evidence written in blood that millions of women
family planning mentioned earlier43: want fewer children but do not have realistic
Ravenholt’s office was virtually alone in its policy of access to modern contraception.
refusing support for programs to create demand for In 1969, I was invited to deliver the Tenth
contraception. He argued that supplying ‘‘unmet Darwin Lecture in London. I ended by saying52:
need’’ would be enough to solve the problem of Some writers are asking, ‘‘What is beyond family
population growth, or was at least worth trying planning?’’ They are talking about incentives where
before trying anything else. Many of his superiors previously they spoke of motivation. Reports of
and subordinates disagreed, and pressed Ravenholt transistor radios are becoming tales of compulsory
for experiments with incentives. sterilization or hormones in the drinking water. I
think this trend is dangerous and unnecessary. The
ideal of voluntary parenthood is an exceptionally
* Author Goldberg recognizes a typo in her published text. important freedom to preserve. I fear it is threatened

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Getting family planning and population back on track www.ghspjournal.org

with erosion because we are failing to make a free 6. Population Action International (PAI). 10 things you should know
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Washington (DC): PAI; [2013]. Available from: http://
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true. I also suggest that there is an urgent need to 7. Speidel JJ, Weiss DC, Ethelston SA, Gilbert SM. Population
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Peer Reviewed

Received: 2014 Jan 21; Accepted: 2014 Apr 4

Cite this article as: Potts M. Getting family planning and population back on track. Glob Health Sci Pract. 2014;2(2):145-151. http://dx.doi.org/
10.9745/GHSP-D-14-00012

ß Potts. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly cited. To view a copy of the license, visit http://
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Global Health: Science and Practice 2014 | Volume 2 | Number 2 151