Population Politics : The Choices That Shape Our Future

Why, after several decades of helping poor countries improve their standard of living, is poverty still the rule? This is a provocative examination of international efforts to regulate fertility rates, and of the influence of aid and liberal policies on world population growth.

International efforts to regulate fertility rates so that populations do not grow beyond the earth''s capacity have included technical assistance and capital; improved health care conditions to lower the risk of infant mortality; increased opportunities to develop literacy; the democratization of governments; and several decades of liberal immigration and refugee policies favoring third world nations. The persistence of high fertility despite international efforts confounds demographers. ''Population Politics'' brilliantly dissects the paradigm responsible for the counterproductive efforts of nations and international agencies. Abernethy, a renowned anthropologist, shows why policies hamper the shift to lower fertility. Ireland, Indonesia, Cuba, China, Turkey and Egypt are but a few of the countries Abernethy examines, showing how economic, sociocultural, and agricultural factors that have caused population growth can be harnessed to stabilize population size. ''Population Politics'' is a provocative examination of the influence of aid and liberal immigration policies on world population growth, and often counterproductive to the role of the United States as an industrial power. This volume''s uniquely interdisciplinary perspective will enlighten the lay reader, as well as demographers and epidemiologists, conservationists, reproduction and family specialists, agricultural economists, and public health personnel. Virginia D. Abernethy is professor emeritus of psychiatry (anthropology) at Vanderbilt Medical School and was for 11 years the editor of the scholarly journal ''Population and Environment. Garrett Hardin is emeritus professor of human ecology in the Department of Biological Sciences and the University of California, Santa Barbara.