Category: Family Planning

Probably no country in the world pays so much attention to its descendants as China does. The old saying, More children equal to more happiness , has been hold as a strong belief for thousands of years. It is well known that the large population was one of biggest burden of China s further development.

Therefore, the Chinese government carried out the family planning policy in the late 70s, using this coercive means, in order to control the population growth. But, a unique phenomenon is that as the millenium drawing near, Chinese attitudes toward family planning policy is changing from passive to initiative. In those developed areas, the birthrate is dropping, especially that coastal area, the population is undergoing a negative growth. Many young couples are willing to have only one child. Even the western pattern of Dinky (Dual Income & No Kids Yet) has appeared here. Why the birthrate is dropping here? Is it the extreme result of family planning ? A long-term statistics from 970 to 995 shows that as time pass by, the policy s role in the population change is decreasing. In China the dropping of birthrate is just a problem of time. We may have many speculations about the problem.

Comparing to the death rate, the dropping of the birthrate is a comprehensive result of economical, political, social, cultural factors. But in my point of view, the main reason for this phenomenon is that people s perception of time is changing. In this paper, through a brief analysis of this phenomenon, I ll try to illustrate some change in modern China, and make out some challenges and opportunities.Part : Motives.More time wanted for self training. Traditional Chinese couples would choose to have a baby shortly after they got married mainly because there was little space for them to seek further development. Even if a young man worked hard in his office diligently for eight hours per days, there was still little chance for him to get a promotion because of the bureaucracy.

The blur encouraging system hindered people form further self-making. For those young couple, time was abundant and of low cost and to bear a baby is a good way to kill time. From this point of view, children were more like some durable products or goods. But with the establishment of market-oriented economy, many new perceptions and ways of management flood in everyday. For the young people nowadays, everyday, they face with many challenges and opportunities. Jobpromotion is just a common thing for them. Correspondingly, enterprises with ask for more highly qualified employees. Several years ago, a high school graduate would be of great value on the job market, but what enterprises seek now are MBAs and EMBAs. Young people need more time for further study. Their knowledge is refreshed every one or two years. And with the improving working efficiency, the eight working hours is just for working, then how to get time for self-making? For those young ones, time is the most precious thing. Bearing and bring up a child will consume time and relevant factors on three aspects. First, parents will have to decrease their working time directly. And then they will lose precious time and opportunities for re-training, thus, they can not get a better job and a higher salary. What s more, the family members leisure time will be reduced.

However, bearing a child is a behavior of economical rationality, and it should conform to the principle of maxim benefit. Young couples are willing to have more children only when products exceed inputs. When there more attempting opportunities, naturally, they will choose to have one or even no child..A strong anticipation for future time Traditional Chinese couples tended to have more children even if they were very poor.

Sometimes, young children should wear what their elder brother had worn. But nowadays, the living conditions are greatly improved, and most big-city young couples are highly educated and well paid. Then why do they choose to have one or no child? Objectively, there are four kinds of utilities that can children bring to his parents.) Consumption-utility. Children can bring to his parents spiritual happiness and emotional contention.) Economical-utility. Children can be taken as products that will bring economical benefits to their parents.) Precaution-utility. Adult children can share the family risk with their parents.4) Guarantee-utility.

Children will be a potential guarantee for their parents aged life. During the time of planned economy, it was just easy for people to get a stable salary according to the principal of equal benefits. But the income is only enough for daily expense, and would not leave much for saving. Life would be quite if everything was ok, but when there were some unexpected things, such as sudden disease or accidents, people would find themselves lack the ability for the precaution of risks. So, ordinarily, people feel ignorant about their future, what they can hold for sure is only now . Thus, Chinese used to put great attention to the economical and guarantee utility of children. The money parents spend on their children was seen as a kind of investment. Parents do expect returns, they hope strongly for the filial guarantee of their future; also they hope they can rely on their children for their aged life and future risks. In China, to bearing a child equals to buy a share of insurance. Some people even hold that depending on children is superior to buying insurance. But in the time of market-oriented economy, the so called iron bowl was broken and there are more risks then ever, such as the phenomenon of laid-off workers.

Correspondingly, people have a stronger sense of risk-precaution. Those welleducated young couples will make a living-plan for a relatively long time. All kinds of insurance meet people s need for future planning and risk-precaution. And the change of the ways to provide the aged decides that people will only rely on savings and social insurance for old-time needs, instead of relying on their children. So what we concern now in Chinese society is the emotional and spiritual satisfaction children bring to their parents before they are independent. And the economical utility is of minor importance nowadays. So parental love today is purer than ever! Comparing with more children and lower living standard, parents prefer have one child and give him better life quality.

The change of bearing reason In traditional China, there are two criteria to test the quality of a child. First is sex, boys were always of a higher value than girls. People would not stop bearing until they have a boy. Then is quantity. From this point, the western theory that the filial quality can substitute the quantity could not be used in China. Most families took children as a tool to carry on the family blood. So both the cost and benefit perception of bearing a child are not clear. Parents hoped their children can be independent and have the ability to exist in the society as early as possible. But with the economical development and the improvement of education, people s perceptions are changed greatly. More concern is paid to filial quality. People begin to invest on their child the first day it is born. Parents hope their children can receive a higher education and are willing to pay for the increasing tuition. And in Chinese philosophy, Children can live and depend on their parents as long as they are not married. In the past, a ten-year-old child can help their parents to take care of younger brothers and sisters. But now, children will stay at school for a longer time. So not only the cost to bring up a child is increasing, but also it s more time-consuming than ever. So Fewer children and better quality has become the real need of people. People prefer to have one child and spend more time and money on him. Then it s easy to understand why the birthrate is dropping.

From the plain description above, we can know that the changing attitude of time does affect the birthrate in China. The low increasing pace does have a positive role in the social and economical development. But the sustainable development asks for a healthy population system and a rational control of population structure. A too drastic dropping birthrate will lead to an abnormal change in the population.

Now, let s see some problems..New contradiction for the compulsory education The main contradiction for the fundamental education before was that there are too many children of school age but the education funds, housing, facilities are of great shortage. By increasing investment and improving the school condition, the problem can be solved. But with the dropping birth rate, the compulsory education will meet new contradictions. If we keep the former standard of school housing and teacher number, there will be a waste with the decreasing of children of school age. At the same time, the need for high education is expanding every day. So it s urgent to adjust the education structure and to give the available educational resource a rational arrangement. The problem of aged population.What aged people hope for is proper medical care, ways for entertainment andchances for contributions to the society. But we have lots of problems when entering the aged society. Most of the aged populations are lived in countryside. Many aged people are living alone and have lost their working ability. With the dropping birthrate, the problem will become more severe and might turn to a big trouble to the government and the society…The fluctuation of market demand.

In the market-oriented economy, the development of an enterprises is determined by it ability to meet the market demand. The changing and development of population is an essential factor for the recognizing of consuming character, market demand scale and production pattern. Undergoing a low birthrate, the population will have a complicated effect on the market. There will be more drastic market fluctuation. If the enterprises lack the flexibility to adjust its production structure and development strategy, it will lose its competition in the market. And also, the economical development will be restricted. Part . Ideas Any change will bring opportunities to us and any phenomenon will give us implications.

Anyone who find these secrets will be successful. So what ideas can we get from the dropping of birth rate? First of all, in such a big country as China, it s necessary to carry on the family planning policy. We should try our best to give a full play to the advantages of the low birthrate. We should strengthen the perception of sustainable development and focus on not only now time but also future. Second we should have a more clear anticipation of future, give a rational arrangement to educational resource, and improve the standard of teaching facility so that we can meet the demand. And we may take the low birthrate as an opportunity to improve the qualifications of the whole nation. We should face the problem of aging. We should increase the supply of medical care, aging products, and the services such as goods delivery.

For enterprises, aging will bring a great variety of commercial chances. We should know how to make use of it. In short, as a special kind of resource, population can promote but at the same time restrict the sustainable development. In China, you can never make a brief conclusion whether the dropping of birthrate is good or not. The problem of population relates not only to now , but also to future . So any responsible decision should take both the two points into account. It s sensible to also concern the economical, social, and environmental factors. In conclusion, I would like to tell everyone in the world that with the birthrate dropping, what we seek in China is the sustainable development in real sense!

What would you think if someone told you that you werent allowed to exercise one of your basic human rights? How would you feel if someone told you that you werent allowed to have another child? Many people would be outraged. China is a country with a severe over population problem. In order to combat the problem, the Chinese government has instituted family planning policies which regulate citizens permission to have multiple children. Before one jumps to the conclusion that family planning inhibits peoples rights, it is necessary to fully understand the benefits it has had on Chinas overpopulation problem. Family planning is justified because it has effectively regulated over-rapid population growth, promoted positive changes in peoples thoughts on marriage, birth and family, and has aided development of Chinas economy and living standards.

For those unfamiliar with the family planning regulations, the following is taken from a U.S. Department of State report, released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor: The State Family Planning Commission formulates and implements policies with assistance from the Family Planning Association, which has 83 million members in 1.02 million branches. Chinese demographers at an October conference predicted that the population would reach almost 1.56 billion in the year 2044 if the current fertility rate continued. Most estimated fertility at 2.1 births per womanindicating that the “one-child policy” is not applied to the majority of Chinese couples. Couples in urban areas are most affected, seldom receiving permission to have more than one child, although the Government maintains that urban couples who themselves were only children may now receive permission to have two children. Outside the cities, exceptions to the “one-child policy” are becoming the norm. The average number of children per family in rural areas, where 70 percent of the people live, is slightly over two. In rural areas, couples are allowed to have a second child if the first is a girl, an exception that takes into account both the demands of farm labor and the traditional preference for boys. Some ethnic minorities, such as Muslim Uyghurs and Tibetans, are subject to less stringent population controls. Minorities in some rural areas are permitted to have as many as four children. In remote areas, such as rural Tibet, there are no effective limits at all.

Family planning has, since its very beginning, regulated over-rapid population growth in China. The idea behind family planning is that couples should have only one child, thus reducing the birth rate that reached as high as 5.8 children per couple in the 1970s. Since 1987, China has had various regulations regarding family planning, but they have all steered toward the policy that only one child be born per couple, with exceptions in rural areas.

A study done by the US Population Institute said that of the more than one thousand couples visited (during the study) who qualified to have more than one child, many decided not to do so. (Popline, 1) The leader of this organization, Warner Fornos, said that China has greatly changed its overall mind set regarding population since he first visited the country in the early 1980s. These changes include a sharp decline in population growth, improved economic conditions, success in poverty eradication efforts, empowerment of women… and the list continues.

In a report released by the Information Office of the State Council in China, it it written that …because Chinas current population and family planning program and policies have won understanding and support from the people, the fertility level of the population has steadily reduced and the trend of over-rapid population growth has been effectively checked along with the countrys economic and social development which has also been checked effectively. It becomes apparent in these two reports that family planning has effectively reduced the over-rapid population growth rate in Chinese communities.

Family planning has altered peoples thoughts regrading marriage, birth and family in China. the overall idea in China used to be that giving birth to a boy would be more economically worthwhile than having a girl. More children meant greater happiness. These ideas have, since family planning came into place, been slowly discarded. In the past, people would keep having babies until they were blessed with a boy. This practice is discouraged through family planning. Family planning has promoted growth and change in the minds of Chinese couples regarding these issues. The report from the State Council of China said that in 1990 the average family size was 3.96 persons, down from 4.84 persons in 1971. The report claims that the major reason for this reduction in family size is the institution of family planning, resulting in fewer births.

People in China are now moving toward the one child idea more and more. In Werner Fornos study, mentioned earlier, he quotes a villager in Liaoning Province who said, In our village, sixty-nine women are qualified to apply to have a second baby in accordance with the government policy, but only nine have expressed any interest. Fornos noted that young couples are now opting to marry later and have few children (Popline, 1). It is evident that family planning has effectively changed the mind set of the people regarding marriage and family. Family planning has, last but not least, aided in development of Chinas economy and living standards. Chinas main goals in family planning, with respect to the economy, is to make the speed of population growth lower than the speed of gross national product growth, thus eventually raising the per-capita level. The following statistics, given in the report from the State Council of China, will illustrate this fact:

In the period between 1952 and 1978, the Gross Domestic product (GDP) increased 4.7 fold. However, the per-capita GDP increased only 2.8 fold. Between 1978 and 1994, China persisted in doing a good job with family planning. The GDP increased 4.2 fold and the per-capita GDP increased 3.4 fold. Compared with 1974, living standards in China have improved greatly. For most families, the basic needs of living, such as food, clothing, and shelter, were met. There has been great progress in China since family planning developed regarding the economic and living standards of the people.

In studying the evidence given in this paper, one can surely begin to agree that the birth regulations in China are providing a positive effect on the Chinese. Family planning regulations, which were set up in an attempt to control the over rapid growth in population in Chinese communities, have been effective in doing just that. Family planning practices are justified because they have effectively regulated overrapid population growth, promoted positive changes in peoples thoughts on marriage, birth and family, and have aided development of Chinas economy and living standards.

The population welfare efforts were initiated in mid-fifties by a national level NGO “the Family Planning Association of Pakistan”. There-after the Government started institutionalized efforts for population planning. The main objective of Population Welfare Program is to reduce the level of fertility by motivating people for child spacing and for a small family norm. It was estimated in 2005 that Pakistan’s population totaled 151 million; a number which grows 1.9 percent annually, equaling a 2.9 million population growth per year. The rapid increase reflects a decrease in death rate, low literacy, low female labor force participation rate and low status of women.

Even though there is considerable demand for family planning in Pakistan, the adoption of family planning has been hampered by government neglect, lack of services and misconceptions. Demographics play a large role in Pakistan’s development and security since the recent change from military rule to civilian leadership. Challenges to Pakistani’s well-being, opportunities for education and employment, and access to health care are escalated due to the country’s continuously-growing population. The simplest solution will be to set up effective family planning centers, but even the simplest solution in Pakistan comes with its own obstacles. Family planning in Pakistan faces a lot of skepticism by the general public. The government would have to raise awareness for the benefits of family planning to dispel the skepticism. The best way to achieve this would be to present people with hard facts. The government has set up family planning centers but unfortunately these are few in number as compared to the population that needs these services.

Religious influence and the role of women is another factor which prevents Pakistani population from family planning methods and contraceptive use. In Pakistan, extremely conservative Islamic beliefs predominate in many parts of the country, in which purdah restricts women to their homes unless accompanied by a male relative. Additionally, levels of schooling are very low in Pakistan, allowing men to have more power in decision-making. Some religious demonstrators use the slogan “Family planning, for those who want free sex!” in attempt to disregard family planning because it is considered “un-Islamic”. Though Pakistani couples commonly cite religious reasons for avoiding birth control, there is not one definitive agreement about family planning and contraception in Islam. In Pakistan, many local religious figures are now supportive of family planning and have begun discussions in their communities in order to promote the health of women and children.

Historically, political strife and cultural restrictions on women constraining their empowerment have hampered implementation of family planning strategies throughout the country. Most women who say they do not want any more children or would like to wait a period of time before their next pregnancy do not have the contraceptive resources available to them in order to do so. One-fourth of married women are estimated to have an unmet need. In the 1990s, women increasingly reported to wanting fewer children, and 24 percent of recent births were reported to be unwanted or mistimed. The rate of unwanted pregnancies is higher for women living in poor or rural environments; this is especially important since two-thirds of women live in rural areas. While only 22 percent of pregnant married women report to be currently using a modern method of birth control and 8 percent reported to be using a traditional method, lack of widespread contraceptive use could be due to the lack breadth of the current family planning program. The most commonly reported reasons for married women electing not to use family planning methods include the belief that fertility should be determined by God (28 percent); opposition to use by the woman, her husband, others or a perceived religious prohibition (23 percent); infertility (15 percent); and concerns about health, side effects or the cost of family planning (12 percent).The first abortion penal code (Article 312) of this region dates back to 1860, during British colonial rule which stipulated that unless an abortion was to “save a woman’s life,” it was expressly illegal and punishable by law, and the same applied for (self) induced miscarriages. In 1990, the penal code was provisionally adapted in order to better reflect Islamic Law, and finally was made permanent in 1997.

According to this change in the abortion law, preservation of “the physical and mental health” of a woman, early on in the pregnancy, also became legal grounds for a permissible abortion. Unfortunately, however the interpretation of necessary treatment required by a woman for an abortion to be performed is vague, and despite the legality, health professionals in Pakistan felt abortion was “immoral, contrary to religion and illegal,” especially according to female paramedics when compared to doctors and gynecologists. When a comparison of the private sector and public sector was made with regards to abortion and post-abortion care provided, it was noted that the private sector performed more abortions and took on double the case-load of post-abortion care, as opposed to the public sector. Therefore, it currently plays an important role in the provision of care of patients undergoing abortions. Due to a lack of access (especially in the rural areas), no clarity (dearth of awareness, understanding and education), fear of legal persecution (especially in the public sector), an inability of health care professionals to interpret the law, as well as a form of FP, women are often forced to seek abortion by untrained providers.

According to an indirect estimation method, applied to the 2002 national data on abortions and its related complications in Pakistan, 1 in every 7 pregnancy terminates in an abortion. Extending beyond the reach of family planning and contraceptive methods is the issue of women’s sexual and reproductive health. According to the World Health Organization and Population Action International, as of 2007, “only 16 percent of women receive at least four antenatal care visits during pregnancy, fewer than one-third of births are attended by skilled health personnel, and the maternal mortality ratio, at 320 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, remains high.

Dating from 2002, Pakistan’s current family planning policy reflects the government’s concern with rising population trends and poverty. The policy’s goals include reducing population growth (from 2.1 percent in 2002 to 1.3 by 2020), reducing fertility through voluntary family planning (from 4 births per woman in 2004 to 2.1 births per woman by 2020), and as a signatory to the Programme of Action developed at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, Pakistan pledged to provide universal access to family planning by 2010. Also in Pakistan’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper is the objective of increasing contraceptive use 57 percent by 2012. At present there is no federal ministry of health or population welfare and therefore no population policy. However, at the time of writing, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Punjab are working on individual Health and Population strategies. An analysis of this policy showed that while the Government of Pakistan spent USD 652 million funds under this policy between 2000 and 2009 (UNFPA), there was hardly any change in CPR which was 30% in 2000 and remained unchanged in 2006. It is also important to note that other elements of population development such as education, capacity building, economic development, climate etc. were notably absent from this policy.

In 2009 the Ministry of Population sought to revise the Population Policy. However, under the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, the Ministry was devolved and its responsibilities were shifted to Provincial Population Welfare Departments. In 2013 some of the provinces – notably Punjab – reported that they were developing their own population policies. In the 1990s, two agencies in Pakistan started village-based community health worker programs in Pakistan. The Ministry of Population Welfare started planning a program in 1992 based on a similar program in Bangladesh. This program recruited married women, with at least 10 years of schooling that lived in rural areas, and trained them to provide family planning services to their communities. The aim of these services was to reduce the fertility rate and slow population growth. The Ministry of Health (Pakistan) started a similar program in 1994 called “lady health workers.” This program emphasized maternal and child health, and also delivered family planning services. Both groups of women provide door to door health and family planning services, supplied with oral and injectable contraceptives and condoms to distribute to their communities. One study in 2002 showed that in areas with 2 or more community based workers there was a 7% increase in the use of modern, reversible contraceptive methods. An evaluation of the lady health worker program showed only a marginal improvement in FP among health indicators the populations served of around 5-6%. In 2006 there were 96,000 lady health workers.

India is one of the world’s most populous countries. Its population is 1.3 billion. Overpopulation comes with a slew of problems, such as pollution, lack of food, and overuse of resources, that all intertwine and make solving poverty even more difficult. In an effort to decrease rapid population growth to preserve resources and aid economic development, India implemented population control policies – with its emergency period and sterilizations. India enacted its policies with the mindset that citizens must make sacrifices now in order to save the future. The human rights violations that occurred as a byproduct of these policies are immense, and it is questionable if the outcomes were worth the cost. The Indian government forcibly sterilized more than 8 million people from 1976 to 1977. The Indian birth rate has declined to 2.24 as of 2017, according to data from the World Bank. India has demonstrably been able to lower population growth, however, instead of allowing low fertility rates to be a positive product of a developing country, they are the result of coercion, violation of rights, and government control over the individual.

India’s population control methods were not as clear-cut, even the goals were originally somewhat vague. In 1952, the First Five-Year Plan that included the call for limiting population was set into motion with the objective of bringing birth rates to “a level consistent with the requirements of the national economy” (Connelly, p.632). As detailed in Matthew Connelly’s ‘Population Control in India: Prologue to the Emergency Period’, the plan originally focused on providing birth control advice in hospitals, and Nehru focused on development and industrialization, believing that food production could keep pace with population growth. In 1960, strategies switched to utilizing group pressure to get more immediate results. India committed itself to reducing the birth rate by 40 percent by 1972, and this was the first plan designed to reduce population growth. India worked with a multitude of NGOs to accomplish its goal, and the World Bank team insisted on setting quotas to achieve it, resulting in reckless and hasty policy implementation. This was most prevalent in the state of Maharashtra, where more than 10,000 men were sterilized over 5 weeks in camps that were designed to create a carnival atmosphere and utilize group pressure. It was preferable to sterilize men rather than women at this time because the operation was shorter and could be done in less than fifteen minutes. In 1962 alone, 158,000 Indians (over 70 percent males) were sterilized. However, with a high drive to cut down fertility rates, it became difficult to keep up with standards. In Kerala, physicians would receive only two days of training and then be expected to perform sterilizations, resulting in many medical complications. Focus quickly shifted to using IUDs since they could be implemented on a mass scale without women needing to learn how to use them like the pill. Problems with the IUDs were quickly discovered, yet hidden from the public by the Population Council. The Council began receiving reports from all over the world that many women were suffering from perforated uteruses, heavy bleeding, and ectopic pregnancy. Standards of basic sterilization were thrown out in the name of achieving high targets, and there were many instances where workers wiped bloody IUD inserters on a cloth or sari after a procedure and would use the same inserter on other patients. In order to meet annual sterilization targets, incentive payments were introduced. The Health Ministry agreed to fund incentive payments of acceptors (the term used for those who accepted to be sterilized). They paid states based on the procedure, and then states would pay whatever was necessary to the acceptor, staff, or motivators (people who motivated others to get sterilized). Incentivized payments proved to be extremely exploitative as payments ranged from 11 to 40 rupees at a time when annual per capita income ranged from 74 to 112 rupees and over 100 million people were at risk of famine. After the incentive payments, sterilization and IUD insertion rates increased dramatically, especially in states most at risk of famine. Bihar, for example, had only performed 2,355 procedures in 1965 and had increased to 97,409 procedures between 1966-1967. There were also targeting issues as people who did not need to get sterilized would receive the procedure just to bring funds into the family — for example, 80-year-old men who already had children. Maharashtra decided that it would force sterilization upon and deny free medical treatment and maternity benefits to those who gave birth to more than three children. Government employees with more than two children were denied scholarships, loans, and even housing benefits (Connelly, pp.641-660). This led to problems with boys being favored over girls due to their patriarchal culture and dowry tradition. This means that female children are viewed as an economic loss since once she gets married, the family will have to pay her husband’s family. This has similarly led to many baby girls being aborted or left out to die.

Since India only implemented these policies so heavily in some states, it will not experience its demographic issues of an aging population until after the mid-century (Lal, p.152). These policies had lasting consequences on the psyche of the Indian population, as the mass sterilizations proved to be so unpopular that the Prime Minister at the time, Indira Gandhi, was voted out of office and it was impossible for future politicians to address population limitation again. Since the family planning program had been so focused on sterilizations and did not introduce other methods of contraception, it has essentially shot itself in the foot. India still relies heavily on female sterilization for family planning, and in 2014, 13 women died after sterilization in Bilaspur District, Chhattisgarh. International interest in India is still prevalent and complicating outcomes, as the focus remains on measurable outcomes like how many sterilizations have been performed, as opposed to a holistic approach.

There are many lessons that can be learned from India’s family planning policy. The first is that humans are complex beings and have eluded economists’ models and central planners’ plans for as long as each profession has been around. Even when intentions may be good, it is not easy to predict all the ways that a policy will affect a given population. And the second lesson that can be taken is that correlation does not equal causation. While it was noted that developed countries had lower fertility rates, the Indian government wrongly concluded that by forcing low fertility rates on the population they could achieve development. It is just as correct to say that because smart people have books, if we give books to everyone, then everyone will be smart. This is a fallacy. Rather than achieve development by providing education, infrastructure, women’s rights, and better healthcare, India chose to limit the population forcefully in an attempt to distribute the current economic pie. When more women are able to go to school and pursue a career, they make the choices that are most beneficial to them and usually choose to have fewer children of their own will. If India had focused on educating people about contraception and allowed women to make choices about their preferred method of contraception, they would still be able to modestly control population growth without using coercive and exploitative methods.

Works Cited

1. Connelly, Matthew. ‘Population Control in India: Prologue to the Emergency Period’. Population and Development Review, vol. 32, no. 4, 2006, pp. 629–667. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20058922 Accessed 16 Feb. 2020.
2. Davis, Evan Grae. ‘It’s a Girl: The Three Deadliest Words in the World’. Youtube, Shadowline Films, 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=azdUcyCkpYI Accessed 15 Feb. 2020.
3. ‘Fertility Rate, Total (Births per Woman) – China, India’. Data, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=CN-IN Accessed 16 Feb. 2020.
4. Hartmann, Betsy, and Mohan Rao. ‘India’s Population Programme’. (2015). http://125.22.40.134:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/703/1/Indias_Population_Programme.pdf
5. Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar, et al. ‘Why India Is Making Progress in Slowing Its Population Growth’. Yale E360, https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-india-is-making-progress-in-slowing-its-population-growth Accessed 10 Feb. 2020.