Evaluate the effectiveness of antinatal policies in less developed countries

Globally, many least developed countries (LDCs) implement antinatal policies, with the goal of lowering the crude birth rate and total fertility rate so that population size can be reduced. These measures are often used when an LDC is experiencing an unsustainably high rate of natural increase, so governments worry that the country’s carrying capacity will be exceeded. In other words, it’s partly to try to improve living standards.

Anti-natal policies range from harsh methods to softer methods in their variety of cases. A world-famous case would be China’s “one-child policy” implemented since the 1970s, when it was still a poverty-stricken LDC and far from the world’s second-largest economy. Deng Xiaoping had publicly announced that for China to achieve its economic development goals for the 21st century, the size of the population would have to be reduced to 1.2 billion. Under his harsh ideology, measures such as forced sterilization and abortion were mercilessly used. The National Commission for Population and Family Planning runs the policy and with their notorious 300,000 full-time workers and 80 million volunteers, they ensured that home visits and assessments were carried out regularly, especially in rural villages. The policy covered about 35% of the Chinese population, and contraceptives were readily available. Couples could only have one child, or in the camp two if the first was a girl. Hefty fines of 10,000 yuan were imposed for a second and subsequent children. There were also some areas that had the ‘certificate of glory of only one child’, which gave couples who adhered to the rule cash bonuses, longer maternity leave, cheaper childcare, preferential housing. , cheaper fertilizers and even loans of 100,000 yuan to renovate their houses as they wish.

Given its plethora of measures, this policy was expected to be a complete success. Statistically, it has achieved the best reduction in the fertility rate since from 1970 to 1979 the TFR fell by more than half from 5.8 to 2.7 and subsequently prevented around 400 million births from 1979 to 2011, equivalent to Europe size. It was also highly successful in urban areas such as Beijing and Shanghai, as it was implemented at an optimal time, when the desire to improve socioeconomic conditions outweighed the desire to have large families. In such urban cities, raising a child requires around 50,000 RMB for a comfortable life and many know that it is not an easy decision. As a result, urban coastal cities in particular voluntarily lowered their TFR to 1.5-1.6, significantly lower than China’s national average. This led to an improvement in living standards, as the carrying capacity could better support a smaller population with existing resources. As such, the trend for these cities has already been set, leading to the prevalence of nuclear families and even “little emperor syndrome”.

Recognizing that, many feel that this policy was a failure in intangible terms, especially when it comes to morale. It is surprising that even 30 years later this barbaric experiment in social engineering is still going on. It has served to distort gender balances by contributing to female infanticide and sex-selective abortions, so that nationally, there are only 100 girls for 118 boys. In rural villages, the figure is much more worrying, 100 girls compared to 133 boys. It has also received widespread criticism for its total disregard for basic human rights in forcing village women to undergo sterilization and abortion, such that in some villages, up to 98% of women have implanted IUDs, often without their knowledge, as had been done when they were unconscious after forced procedures. In Bobai County in western Guangxi, officials launched a fierce crackdown and detained 17,000 women before subjecting them to such forced procedures, extracting 7.8 million yuan as fines and ransacking the homes of those who refused to pay. . Perhaps a more glaring failure is the fact that the policy is already hurting China itself, as it is evidently reducing its comparative economic advantage of surplus labor and being the “factory of the world.” Labor crises can be seen as the Pearl River Delta has less than 2 million workers, while central Wenzhou has less than 1 million. Chinese wages are rising 4% a year and the minimum wage in Guangzhou has been raised to more than 1,000 yuan from 860 yuan previously. It will be counterproductive if the policy is not controlled and ends up affecting FDI in the country.

LDCs are generally unable to implement their anti-natal policies very successfully due to inherent weaknesses in governance and the national base resulting in an inability to manage various complex issues well. In Nigeria, for example, the 1988 National Population Policy was virtually a failure. Contraception was promoted, and it must be recognized, first of all, that perhaps the good thing was that contraceptive and family planning services became readily available and affordable to all, increasing contraceptive use by an impressive 50% in the 5 years since a lousy 6%. Vigorous campaigns were also carried out to eradicate discrimination against women in the workplace and in the home. However, the policy was a general failure due to its extremely fleeting success. In the long run, it didn’t work out well, as more than half of Nigerians are Muslim, so the promotion of contraceptives had violated religious beliefs and the reasons for it were not understood. The policy also operated on a voluntary basis, allowing families to determine if they wanted to participate. As such, naturally many opted out and the final participation rate was disappointing. The TFR remained relatively high at 5.70 between 2000 and 2005 and 5.61 between 2005 and 2010. Their population growth rate of 3% per year has made them the fastest growing nation in Africa, with one in 6 Africans who is Nigerian. This can have unintended consequences if the problem persists and the dependency of the youth reaches a state that the country cannot support.

In democratic LDCs like India, their situation is quite similar to Nigeria’s in that, being a democracy, they were unable to legislate the number of babies allowed per couple in their 1972 anti-natal policy. abortion and contraception, including methods such as the pill and the coil, were widely promoted. The media were used to broadcast advertisements and billboards featuring a crowded globe, and the message “limited resources, growing population” was used in the advertisements. Recently, the state of Rajasthan is encouraging voluntary sterilization by offering a car, the Tata Nano (world’s cheapest car) made in India, along with motorcycles, televisions and food blenders as a prize. This will work well, especially among the poorer group, as these once-luxury choice household appliances and items are now available with sterilization. The crude birth rate fell by more than half, from 40.8 in 1951 to 26.4 in 1998. The TFR also fell from 4.5 to 3.4 in a matter of years.

Despite the minor success, much more lies in its subtle flaws. In 1978, the legal age of marriage was raised from 15 to 18, but this was largely ignored as tradition took precedence over state law, the issue of free human choice in a democracy. Furthermore, contraception promotion was unsuccessful with a use level of only 25% despite improvements. In rural villages like Uttar Pradesh, unintentional female infanticide was caused with fewer than 90 girls for every 100 boys. More significantly, there were widespread complaints about many people being forced into inadvertent sterilization and abortion, leading to the abandonment of the campaign. With states like Uttar Pradesh adding 10 million every 3 years, India’s population of 1.1 billion is expected to surpass China’s 1.3 billion by 2030, clearly showing the success of the former compared to the dismal results of the latter.

In conclusion, anti-birth policies in LDCs definitely have their own successes or failures, however, in the case of an authoritarian government in China, legislation takes precedence and statics will show the absolute success of the measure, although morality intangible and socioeconomic aspects of life cannot improve. However, in most cases, we tend to see an LDC unable to handle such complexities of birth policies due to the myriad of factors that need to be considered, such as religious practices, acceptability and relevance of the policy, etc. so, with other pressing priorities of alleviating poverty and achieving economic growth, LDCs generally do not have the additional capacity to cope with successful implementation.