Problems of Policy in Relation to Areas of Heavy Population Pressure

Notestein, Frank W.

doi:10.2307/3348055

Cited by 24 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…the beginning of global mortality decline. At the 1943 Milbank meeting there was agreement about what had happened in India, Java, and elsewhere: colonial law and order, better transport and its effect in reducing famines, the control of epidemic disease, new agricultural techniques including irrigation, and elementary sanitation and hygiene (Davis 1944;Kirk 1944;Notestein 1944b). Notestein still believed that this might be only a temporary period of good fortune, and added: ''We may conclude that in the absence of sweeping economic development recurrent catastrophes are virtually certain'' (Notestein 1944b: 427).…”

Section: The Evolution Of Relevant Demographic Theory: Antecedents Ofmentioning

confidence: 97%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Demographers’ Involvement in Twentieth-Century Population Policy: Continuity or Discontinuity?

Caldwell

2005

Popul Res Policy Rev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The second half of the twentieth century witnessed the development of a crusading spirit and massive technical aid aimed at reducing fertility levels and rates of population growth in developing countries, and also the involvement of demographers in these events. The demographers at Princeton University's Office of Population Research, Frank Notestein and his colleagues, have been singled out by recent authors as playing a unique role in bringing about these changes, and they have been criticized for encouraging demographers to become involved, so eroding their scientific objectivity. This paper examines the development of relevant population thought and theory in the English-language literature over the first half of the twentieth century. It concludes that in the circumstances of the second half of the twentieth century, it was inevitable that developed countries and their demographers would become involved in controlling fertility levels in developing countries. The OPR story should be seen largely in terms of how the world's leading demographic center and its demographic transition theory were swept along by global changes. As those developments started, attitudes to population change in densely settled Asia became Malthusian, even as population growth accompanied by mortality decline in Asia demonstrated that, at least in the short term, the positive checks were disappearing.

show abstract

Section: The Evolution Of Relevant Demographic Theory: Antecedents Ofmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Clearly, in his view the revolutions would be parallel and it would be the fertility decline that would ward off the detrimental effect that population growth might exert in choking the industrial revolution. Notestein (1944b) put forward the proposition that…”

Section: The Evolution Of Relevant Demographic Theory: Antecedents Ofmentioning

confidence: 98%

Demographers’ Involvement in Twentieth-Century Population Policy: Continuity or Discontinuity?

Caldwell

2005

Popul Res Policy Rev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…OPR demographers discovered that, in parts of Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, mortality was beginning to decline, resulting in population growth. Unlike in the European countries they had analyzed, this mortality decline was not a result of modernization or industrialization, but rather of imperialism (Notestein ; Davis ). Colonial governments had provided a modicum of relief from famine, disease, and violence, reducing mortality enough to produce sustained population growth.…”

Section: Globalizing Anglophone Demography After World War IImentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Notestein and Davis reasoned from the experience of Western Europe and the United States that reducing fertility would require the economic development that would complete the demographic transition. Absent economic development, the spread of modern contraceptives would have little effect (Notestein ; Davis , ). Attributing high fertility to the poverty perpetuated by continued imperialism and economic domination by the countries of Europe and North America, Notestein and Davis recommended political and economic independence and the development of indigenous middle classes and civil societies as the most rapid route to fertility decline.…”

Section: Globalizing Anglophone Demography After World War IImentioning

confidence: 99%

A Digital History of Anglophone Demography and Global Population Control, 1915–1984

Merchant¹

2017

Population & Development Rev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Couples, it was argued, made a rational decision to have fewer children. Socioeconomic change, it was asserted, was both necessary and sufficient for fertility decline: family size would fall “with great effectiveness” without the “assistance of modern contraceptive techniques.” 18 The first family planning programs that USAID supported were dismissed as “quackery” and “wishful thinking.” 19 …”

Section: Models Of Fertility Declinementioning

confidence: 99%