World Development Report 1984

liberalized, and contraception, especially use of uted little. But in the early years of the twentieth
condoms, spread. century, medical science found ways to combat
What are the lessons for developing countries? infectious disease. As a result, by the 1920s and
* Fertility can decline in largely rural popula- 1930s mortality decline was spreading from
tions; it did so in France, Hungary, Japan, and Europe and North America to Japan, India, and
Sweden. In France, Hungary, and Japan social parts of Central and South America. With the
aspirations and land ownership help explain why introduction of antibiotics, antimalarial spraying,
smallholders chose to limit their families. In Swe- and the increased use of vaccination, the decline
den fertility decline was associated with rapid pro- accelerated in the 1950s and spread to all developductivity
gains in agriculture and with an increase ing countries. Improved communications, the conin
the share of landowners among all agricultural solidation of political and administrative systems,
workers. and cheaper transport all made it easier to transfer
* Economic and social opportunities for the the new advances between and within countries.
majority of people matter. Fertility decline was Not only did this mortality decline occur rapidly;
delayed in England, where the real wages of farm it began from higher initial levels (see Figure 4.2)
laborers and unskilled workers rose only slowly, and in societies where fertility levels were higher.
and where education was confined to the middle At least initially it was not followed by fertility
class through most of the nineteenth century. Fer- decline.
tility fell as education spread and became more The current demographic condition of developnecessary
to earn a living. ing countries can be summed up in seven state-
* The mere idea that it is legitimate to limit ments.
births matters, but it does not spread automati- 1. The postwar rate of population growth in developcally.
In France and some other European coun- ing countries is without precedent. Though in the past
tries fertility declined rapidly within cultural and two decades rates of population growth in some countries
linguistic boundaries, but was slow to do so farther have been falling because of birth rate declines, rates of
afield. The spread of the idea that fertility control is growth are still unusually high, and birth rates are not
legitimate occurs more quickly as transport and declining everywhere.
communication become easier-a potentially powerful
force now in developing countries compared In 1984 the world's population will increase by
with Europe before the twentieth century. about 80 million. Most of the increase, about 73
* Low fertility is possible, but much more diffi- million, will occur in developing countries, now
cult, without sophisticated modern methods of comprising about three-quarters of world populabirth
control. In today's developed countries, late tion. The combination of continued high fertility
marriage and celibacy were important contribu- and much-reduced mortality has led to population
tors; so, probably, were withdrawal and absti- growth of between 2 and 4 percent a year in most
nence, abortion, and possibly infanticide. But once low- and middle-income countries, compared with
economic and social conditions are favorable, 1 percent and less in most developed countries.
modern contraception speeds the decline in fertil- Growth at 3 percent a year means that in seventy
ity, as the Japanese experience has proved. years population grows eightfold; at 1 percent a
year it merely doubles. Current population growth
Current demographic change in developing in the developing economies is a phenomenon for
countries which economic and demographic history offers
no real precedent.
Only in a few developing countries have popula- For developing countries as a group, population
tion growth rates fallen below 2 percent a year in growth rates rose from 2.0 percent in 1950 to 2.4
the past two decades. In many, population is still percent in 1965, largely because of falling death
growing by more than 3 percent a year. In general, rates (see Figure 4.2). Since then, death rates have
growth is fastest in the poorest countries. This continued to fall but birth rates have declined even
delinking of population growth and prosperity in more, so that growth has slowed somewhat. The
what is now the developing world began after rate of natural increase (and of population growth)
World War 1, when mortality began to decline. in developing countries is now about 2 percent a
Mortality had already been falling slowly in year.
Europe and the Americas, largely because of The fall in the average growth rate is due almost
improved living standards-medicine had contrib- entirely to the birth rate decline in China, which
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