Evaluate the effectiveness of antinatal policies in less developed countries

Website design By BotEap.comGlobally, many least developed countries (LDCs) implement anti-natal policies, with the aim of lowering the crude birth rate and the 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 that governments are concerned that the country’s carrying capacity will be exceeded. In other words, it is partly to try to improve living standards.

Website design By BotEap.comAntinatal policies range from hard 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 they were still a poverty-stricken LDC and far from being the world’s second largest economy. Deng Xiaoping had publicly announced that for China to meet its economic development goals for the 21st century, the population size would have to be reduced to 1.2 billion. Under his harsh ideology, measures such as forced sterilization and abortion were ruthlessly employed. The National Population and Family Planning Commission executes the policy and with its notorious 300,000 full-time workers and 80 million volunteers, they ensured that home visits and assessments take place 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 field two if the first was a girl. Heavy fines of 10,000 yuan were imposed for a second and subsequent children. There were also some areas that had the ‘one child certificate of glory’, which gave couples who adhered to the rule cash bonuses, longer maternity leave, cheaper child care, preferential housing. , cheaper fertilizers, and even 100,000 yuan loans to renovate their houses as they wish.

Website design By BotEap.comGiven 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 averted around 400 million births from 1979 to 2011, equivalent to Europe size. It was also very 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 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.”

Website design By BotEap.comRecognizing 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, such that nationally, there are only 100 girls to 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 utter disregard for basic human rights in forcing village women to undergo sterilizations and abortions, so that in some villages up to 98% of women have had IUDs inserted, 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 clearly 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 risen to more than 1,000 yuan from 860 previously. It will be counterproductive if the policy is not controlled and ends up affecting FDI in the country.

Website design By BotEap.comLDCs are generally unable to implement their anti-natal policies very successfully due to inherent weaknesses in governance and national base caused by inability to deal well with various complex issues. In Nigeria, for example, the National Population Policy of 1988 was practically a failure. Contraception was promoted and it should be recognized, first of all, that perhaps the good thing was that contraceptive and family planning services were readily available and affordable to all, increasing contraceptive use by an impressive 50% in 5 years since a lousy 6%. Vigorous campaigns were also carried out to eradicate discrimination against women in the workplace and at home. However, the policy was an overall failure due to its extremely fleeting success. In the long term, it did not work well, since more than half of Nigerians are Muslim, so the promotion of contraception had violated religious beliefs and its reasons 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 may have unintended consequences if the problem persists and youth dependency reaches a state the country cannot bear.

Website design By BotEap.comIn democratic LDCs like India their situation is quite similar to Nigeria in that being a democracy they were unable to legislate the number of babies allowed per couple in their 1972 anti-natal policy. In this year it was legalized abortion and contraception was widely promoted, including methods such as the pill and the coil. The media was used to spread advertisements and posters with a globe overflowing with people and the message “limited resources, growing population” was used in the advertisements. Recently, the state of Rajasthan is encouraging voluntary sterilization by offering as a prize a car, the Tata Nano (the world’s cheapest car) made in India, along with motorcycles, televisions and food blenders. This will work well, especially among the poorer group, as these once-luxury appliances and household items of choice are now available sterilized. 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.

Website design By BotEap.comDespite 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 problem of free human choice in a democracy. Furthermore, promotion of contraception was unsuccessful with a usage level of only 25% despite improvements. In rural villages like Uttar Pradesh, unintentional female infanticide was caused by 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 exceed China’s 1.3 billion by 2030, starkly showing the success of the former compared to the dismal results of the latter.

Website design By BotEap.comIn conclusion, anti-natality policies in LDCs definitely have their own successes or failures, however, in the case of an authoritarian government in China, legislation takes precedence and static will show the absolute success of the measure, although the moral intangible and socioeconomic aspects of life can not 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 extra capacity to cope with successful implementation.