The Balance between AID for Social and Economic Development and AID for Population Control

Abstract

The rich countries can best help the poor ones to lower their rates of population growth by providing assistance, including assistance for family planning, that will help to improve the conditions of life for the majority of the population in such a way that they will want and have fewer children. Although there is considerable empirical evidence for this position, it cannot be either proven or disproven on statistical grounds and must be based on political and moral reasons, as well as statistical ones. For the people most directly concerned, a reduction in the rate of population growth is not an end in itself, but only one of the factors needed to improve their conditions of life. These factors include, besides a lower ratio of children to adults, the following: rational urbanization, rising incomes, introduction of modern agricultural practices, more education, improved health services, higher levels of employment and education for women, better communications, greater opportunities for socioeconomic mobility, and reductions in infant and child mortality. Undue concentration on population control will be counterproductive in the long run, even in purely pragmatic terms, and it can have little moral justification.

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