World Development Report 1984

welfare and allowing free choice. Incentives com- grams, disincentives alter the balance of costs and
pensate individuals for the economic and social benefits of having children. Rather than raise the
losses of delaying births or of having fewer chil- benefits of having fewer children, however, they
dren. Those who accept payment for not having increase the cost of having many. They have therechildren
do so because they find this tradeoff fore the disadvantage that they might unfairly
worthwhile; they are compensated for some of the penalize the poor. The rich will find it easier to
public savings from lower fertility. Similarly with accept the additional costs of more children, yet
disincentives: those who elect to pay the higher the poor may have greater need of children. And
costs of additional children compensate society as children, who have no choice in the matter, bear
a whole for the private benefits of more children. the costs of certain disincentives-those which
But incentive and disincentive programs require give preference in schooling to the first born and
- extra care to avoid unfairness and abuse, not only which heavily tax family income. It is essential to
* in their implementation but also in their design. design disincentives so that they avoid inequality;
Some benefits from an incentive program are with care, however, they need be no more objecbound
to go to people who would have deferred tionable than any other taxes or subsidies.
- pregnancy or limited births anyway; public subsi- Even policies that are theoretically voluntary can
dies may therefore benefit the rich unnecessarily. be implemented in a coercive fashion if not prop-
When payments are offered as an inducement to erly monitored. Many countries set performance
sterilization-which is usually irreversible-care targets for family planning workers in recruiting
must be taken that the poor are not being tempted new acceptors. While some criteria for evaluating
to act out of short-term economic necessity con- workers' performance are clearly necessary, excestrary
to their long-term interests. Such payments sive pressure to achieve unrealistic targets threatare
usually quite small, since they are meant to ens the voluntaristic nature of programs. This is
compensate for time and travel costs. Govern- the lesson of the Indian Emergency of 1976-77,
ments that offer them have generally established when workers were subject to extreme pressure to
procedures that make written consent mandatory, achieve high sterilization quotas and many people
and have imposed criteria that potential clients were pressured to be sterilized against their will.
must fulfill (such as having several children Consequently, the party in power lost the next
already). A waiting period between the decision, election. In more recent years, this program, operthe
sterilization, and the payment can also be a ating on a strictly voluntary basis, has proved very
safeguard-though in inaccessible rural areas a successful.
waiting period may be impractical, since those To repeat an important point noted in Chapter 1,
seeking sterilization may find it hard to make even the ultimate goal of public policy is to improve
one trip to a clinic. Deferred incentives, as in the living standards, to enhance individual choice,
case of educational bonds or an old-age security and to create conditions that enable people to realpayment,
have the advantage of building in such a ize their potential. Lower fertility is only an intersafeguard.
mediate objective; a commitment to achieve lower
Incentives that offer schools, low interest loans, fertility must not mean a willingness to achieve it
or a tubewell to communities where contraceptive at any cost. The successful experience of many
use is high also directly link lower fertility to countries already indicates that it need not.
increased welfare. To the extent that all members
can benefit from community incentives, individual
welfare is improved. Care must be taken that the Policy priorities in developing regions
benefits of community incentives are distributed
equitably, however. There is the danger that, in The differences among developing countries, both
closely knit communities, some couples will be in their demographic situation and in the evolution
pressured to use contraception against their will. of their population policies, are profound. In sub-
But community pressure always exists, and usu- Saharan Africa, few countries have yet to take the
ally influences couples to have many children even first steps in developing a population policy. At the
when they would prefer not to. In Indonesia and other extreme, in East Asia family planning serv-
Thailand community incentives are only loosely ices are accessible, political commitment is high,
tied to actual use of contraception and are thus and governments offer incentives for couples to
primarily promotional. have small families. In all regions there is scope for
Like incentives and various socioeconomic pro- reducing mortality, increasing literacy, and
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