Mortality Reduction Fertility Decline And Population Growth Toward A More Relevant Assessment Of The Relationships Among Them PDF Download

This discussion responds to the questions of programs to reduce mortality and of how large a change in growth will result from efforts to lower fertility. It considers the influence of the policies or programs in question on mortality and on fertility, and the influence of the resulting fertility or mortality decline on the rate of change in the other. An approach of the sort required to adequately assess these policies or programs is difficult to apply, but its potential significance for policy and program analysis can be illustrated through a few qualitative and crude quantitative examples. These illustrations suggest two propositions to serve as interim guides to action and as hypotheses to be confirmed or disproven through future research. First, most programs and policies undertaken to reduce mortality will produce even larger fertility declines and thus slower growth. And, second, most measures designed to reduce fertility will also result in slower growth, but by an amount that may be significantly less than anticipated on the basis of conventional assessment techniques.