Neo-Malthusianism and development: shifting interpretations of a contested paradigm

Abstract

This article focuses on the connection between the ideology of neo-Malthusianism and development theory and practice from the mid 1940s to the present. First identified by a few demographic experts, population policies and family planning gradually turned into a global movement for the control of world population. From the beginning, population discourses and policies were intertwined with strategies of socioeconomic development. They were also a reflection of strategic concerns and deliberations about the role of the West in the Cold War and vis-à-vis the emerging Global South. Focusing on the collective impact of individual choices, population controllers assumed that top-down approaches could swiftly change reproductive behaviour. They gave priority to preventing births over health, education, and female empowerment. Family planning began to shift its emphasis from the collective to the individual only in response to outright coercive actions and with the emergence of new actors, most notably feminists, from the late 1970s on.

Economic Role of Population Density during Pandemics—A Comparative Analysis of Saudi Arabia and China

“…With Saudi Arabia being sparsely populated and not engaged in population reduction programs, China emerges as a densely populated country that continuously relies on policies informed by Neo-Malthusianism. Throughout the 1970s, numerous scholars revisited the ideas proposed by Malthus in his 1798 essay [ 58 , 59 ]. Culminating with Kissinger’s report, these studies concluded that current growth rates are unsustainable from the perspectives of food supply, environmental stress, and the availability of natural resources [ 45 ].…”

Egy elmélet mindenek felett: változás és állandósulás a demográfiai átmenet tudományos közgondolkodásában

“…o.). 9 Mindezzel együtt a negyvenes évek végétől az angolszász népesedési diskurzusokon a kommunizmus előretörésétől való félelem jegyében a malthusiánus vonások is egyre nagyobb nyomot hagytak (Frey, 2011).…”

“…Tehát amíg az elmélet eredeti interpretációjának értelmében a modernizáció elmaradása a túlnépesedés veszélyével fenyegetett, az ötvenes évekre a hidegháborús nyomás megfordította ezt a kapcsolatot, melynek fényében már a túlnépesedés veszélyeztette a kommunista agitáció legjobb ellenszerének tartott gazdasági fejlődést. Ennek eredményeként vált a családtervezés az USA külföldi modernizációs csomagjának megkerülhetetlen részévé, egyben a folyósítások feltételévé egészen a nyolcvanas évek végéig (Frey, 2011). Az amerikai segélyezés működésén egyszerre volt kivehető a felkorbácsolt közhangulat által elnyomott szofisztikált álláspontok hiánya, illetve az átmenet-elmélet univerzalista iránymutatása, mely szerint ugyanarra a problémára ugyanaz a megoldás alkalmazandó (Sharpless, 1995).…”

Contesting ‘Global Sisterhood’: The Global Women's Health Movement, the United Nations and the Different Meanings of Reproductive Rights (1970s–80s)

“…Underpinned by the theory of global overpopulation and neo-Malthusianism, and given great impulse by new birth control technologies, these programmes were aimed primarily at lowering fertility through the dissemination of contraception ('flooding the third world with contraceptives', as often stated in Population Council documents). 10 By the late 1960s, population control programmes through family planning were operative in over 30 countries, most of these with IPPF or Population Council involvement. As is now well documented, in many instances, including in the Philippines and Kenya in the 1960s and India and Bangladesh in the 1970s, such interventions were accompanied by various forms of coercion, including unconsented abortion and sterilisation, and insufficient information to users in the administering of the intra-uterine device (IUD).…”