Population History and Population Policies from an Anthropological Perspective

This paper takes an anthropological approach in examining what I discern to be the theoretical bases of neo-Malthusian population policies. Many demographers hold that in order to come to terms with the population problem, one should counteract an ingrained desire of families to have a large number of children. This policy conclusion depends to a significant degree on four demographic tenets of questionable standing: (a) a homeo-static, single-transition model of human population history; (b) the assumption that natality and mortality have uniformly been "very high" until the advent of industrialization; (c) an explanation of family-size desires by reference primarily to fixed norms held on the familial level; and (d) a simple motivationist view of factors influencing family planning practices, including a disregard of the differential costs and benefits involved in using alternative methods and services for birth control. After discussing population history in the framework of a critique of these four tenets, I offer a different set of policy recommendations for the urgent task of population planning.