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510 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. 8 (1990)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0510 and id is 1 raw text is: PREFACE This volume is designed to introduce to a broad audience some of the best contempo- rary research on population issues in the world's major regions. The selections were chosen not because they were addressed to a specific problem or because they were united in approach or style. Instead, authors whose research on population change had demon- strated unusual distinction and insight were invited to describe and illustrate their research. In some cases their efforts take the form of reviews of research on major issues, but more often they present new information and analyses that elaborate upon themes that they had already addressed. The most recent issue of The Annals dealing entirely with population matters was published in 1967.' In order to set the stage for what follows, it is useful to describe briefly some of the major demographic trends, as well as trends in population research, that have occurred in the interim. Twenty years ago, most demographers were focusing their attention on what was widely acknowledged to be the population problem. The number of humans was believed to be expanding too rapidly, especially in poor countries, where resources to support additional people were least abundant. This concern was reflected in both the title and the contents of an important National Academy of Sciences report, Rapid Population Growth.' But rapid growth was also a problem in the United States, where the President's Commission on Population Growth and the American Future was prepar- ing its report addressing the environmental, economic, and social threats raised by sustained growth.3 Both internationally and nationally, the preferred response to this problem was governmental sponsorship of family planning programs: subsidization of services that better enable individuals to act on their preferences for smaller families. Some argued that these programs did not go far enough because people wanted more children than were socially desirable.' Childbearing customs had evolved over centuries, and it appeared to many that they would change very slowly even though the conditions facing couples-especially the survival of their children-could change much more quickly. This conception of the population problem is alive and well. It continues to motivate a great deal of international programmatic and research activity in the population field, including that of the largest donor, the U.S. Agency for International Development, as well as that of the United Nations, the World Bank, and many foundations. Along the way, reproductive rights and the health advantages of smaller families have been added 1. John D. Durand, ed., The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 369, World Population (Jan. 1967). 2. National Academy of Sciences, Rapid Population Growth: Consequences and Policy Implications (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971). 3. Commission on Population Growth and the American Future, Population and the American Future (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1972). 4. Kingsley Davis, Population Policy: Will Current Programs Succeed? Science, 10 Nov. 1967, pp. 730-39. 8

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