The ‘Politicization’ of Fertility to Achieve Non-Demographic Objectives

Aside from the potential impact of population growth processes on the politics of life perceptions about population growth and the determinants of fertility can play an independent political and policy role. Population research does not only explain the political impact of fertility but can also contribute to the impact through the focus of its research agenda and the ways in which it disseminates its findings. The increasing trend of voicing demographic arguments to achieve nondemographic objectives is due to the following developments: the growing consensus that people in developing countries have much to gain and little to lose by reducing their population growth rates; politicization is helped by the growing evidence that there can be no sweeping explanation for high fertility nor fertility decline; and there is a clear impact of the continuous pressure on demographic research to be policy-relevant and to identify the policy relevance of its findings.