Discuss the effectiveness of anti-natalist policies in LDCs and give reasons for their relative success or failure.
Response.
Where institutional factors may be perceived to have been effective, it may well be argued that anti-natalist policies only serve to complement or reinforce the decline in fertility rates. Hence, socioeconomic development which includes changes in mind-sets and lifestyle choices have contributed heavily to the success of China's birth rate decline.
Singapore's introduction of the old population policy papers has been perceived to be overly-effective till the point that it was criticized by many to put the blame of the country's rapid decline in fertility rates on it in current times. Not only so, the government had to reverse its policy by the end of the 1980s. .
Singapore was considered a less developed country back in the 1900s. When the post-war baby boom begins to conquer the fertility rates in Singapore, birth rates shot up. The Anti-natalist phase from 1966 to 1982 saw the government embarking on an "ambitious programme" of urban renewal, socioeconomic planning and extensive industrialization. In order to prevent the achievements on the economic front from being swallowed up by an unsustainably large population, a 'family 7 planning' program, the institution of the Singapore Family Planning and Population Board (SFPPB), prevalence of campaign posters, legislating abortions and sterilization, bringing in social and economic incentives such as paid maternity leave, income tax relief, housing priority, cheaper health care and free education. 'Family planning' was viewed as a strategy for population change.
The policy indeed contributed to the country's master plan in building a first world country as figures of birth rate of 29.5 per thousand and total fertility rates standing at 4.6 in 1965 rapidly fell to 15.2 per thousand and 1.7 respectively.
