World Development Report 1984

fertility in a changing world is a symptom of lack of efits to other families' children and grandchildren?
access: to health services, which would reduce the Even when each couple decides to have many
need for many births to insure against infant and children, and achieves its wish, it might have been
child mortality; to education, which would raise happier with fewer children if it could have been
parents' hopes for their children and would sure that other couples would have done the same.
broaden women's outlook and opportunities; to Poor couples who hope their children will support
social security and other forms of insurance for old them in their old age may rightly fear that, because
age; to consumer goods and social opportunities other couples are having so many children, any
that compete with childbearing; and to family one of their own children has less chance of going
planning services, which provide the means to to school and eventually of finding a good job.
limit births. Assured that each child would have a better
chance of school and work in a less crowded
The need for public policy world, each couple might be happy with fewer
children.
There are two broad justifications for government In this setting, people will not be confident that
action to encourage people to have fewer children. provision of contraceptives by private suppliers
The first is the gap between the private and social will alone lead to widespread reduction in fertility.
gains from having many children. Suppose that, Only through the public sector can people make,
even as each couple hopes to benefit from many in effect, a contract with each other: "If each of us
children, it wishes its neighbors would have fewer, has fewer children, we can rely on government
so that its children would face less competition for support for nationwide measures (to improve
land and jobs. In other words, the couple's wish access to family planning services and to create
for society as a whole is different from its wish for incentives for their use) to ensure that everybody
itself. One reason private and social gains differ is makes the same decision. That way, we and our
the existence of "externalities": parents do not children will all enjoy a better chance in life." By
internalize the costs of their children to society as a developing a social contract, the government frees
whole. For example, one family's children will each individual couple from its "isolation parahave
little effect on the availability of land; but the dox," from its need to decide alone to have more
children born of many families will. The same is children than it would want if others were limiting
true of the effects on forests or pasture. To narrow their family size (see Box 4.1).
this gap between private and social perceptions, Private and social gains from children also differ
governments can act as custodians of society. They in the developed countries, although usually in the
are meant to have longer time horizons than their opposite direction. As public social security sysindividual
constituents, and to weigh the interests tems develop and people have many ways to save
of future generations against those of the present. for their old age, the private economic benefits of
Where natural resources are abundant, so-called children diminish. At the same time their private
congestion costs caused in part by externalities costs rise. Thus many couples choose to have only
may not be great, at least at the national level. But one child or even none. In some countries governin
most countries there is another source of differ- ments use financial and other incentives to encourence
between the private and social gains from age higher fertility; this too is a population policy
many children. Health and education costs of chil- to achieve a common goal (see Chapter 8).
dren are heavily subsidized by the public sector, as Private and social gains also differ in areas other
are roads, communications, and other public serv- than fertility. For the common good, legislation
ices that boost jobs and income. The result, dis- requires that children go to school and that everycussed
in the next chapter, is that high fertility con- body be vaccinated against contagious diseases.
strains the amount of resources available for Limits, often backed by financial penalties, are
investment and hence for future income growth. placed on automobile speeds, chopping down for-
Even as some couples have many children because ests, and polluting air and water. Government proof
a lack of health services and schooling opportu- duces social goods and services, the benefits of
nities, their large families make it more difficult for which individuals cannot capture and will not prothe
public sector to extend health and schooling to duce on their own: police protection, clean water
all. Yet why should one couple, on its own, give up to protect health, parks for common enjoyment.
the possible private benefits of children, when its The second justification for government action to
sacrifice alone would provide only minuscule ben- reduce fertility is that people may have more chil-
54