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The striking upsurge in population growth rates in developing countries at the close of World War II gained force during the next decade. From the 1950s to the 1970s, scholars and advocacy groups publicized the trend and drew troubling conclusions about its economic and ecological implications. Private educational and philanthropic organizations, government, and international organizations joined in the struggle to reduce fertility. Three decades later this movement has seen changes beyond anyone's most optimistic dreams, and global demographic stabilization is expected in this century. The Global Family Planning Revolution preserves the remarkable record of this success. Its editors and authors offer more than a historical record. They disccuss important lessons for current and future initiatives of the international community. Some programs succeeded while others initially failed, and the analyses provide valuable guidance for emerging health-related policy objectives and responses to global challenges.

Professor Ravi Batra's research and reflection have lead him
to believe that the world is headed, more or less inexorably, towards a
major depression "of the same, if not greater, severity" than the one of
the ninteen-thirties. He explains that he has written the book to warn
people and he provides a set of investment and financial tips, so that
the reader can avoid personal disaster in the "impending cataclysm".
Batra's tone is light, pleasant but totally self-assured; he "fervently
hopes that his prophecies turn out to be totally wrong" but he does not
expect this outcome. One must accept that the book is a serious effort
at scholarship and analysis and that Batra truly believes in his
underlying model and the forecasts it produces. I stress this because
there are many passages, even entire sections, in the book which, taken
by themselves, might lead one to suspect that the book is a hoax and
that the author is having fun at our expense. But, let us reject this
possibility and attempt to deal seriously with this presumably serious
book.

Family planning in Pakistan has a long, interesting, expensive
and generally unsuccessful history. Recently, after a pause of several
years, vigorous public-sector efforts to control population growth have
been resumed. This has been called "the new beginning" by Pakistan
officials. This note will relate the details and also the genesis of
this recent renewal of family-planning activity. The first "beginning"
was the programme launched in 1965 [4]. This programme grew rapidly and
attracted considerable attention internationally. By the mid-Seventies
it was clear that the programme's impact had been overrated and that it
was on the verge of stagnation. Under the strong urging of USAID, the
major donor group, a last desperate effort was made using a strongly
supply-oriented approach. This so-called "inundation scheme" also proved
a failure and by 1977 the programme had virtually come to a halt [5].
The Fifth Five Year Plan (1978- 1983) endorsed population control but
called for an integrated health- and family planning approach. A new
programme of training, mass education and improved service-delivery was
laid out in the Plan, but, in fact, little seems to have been
accomplished or even attempted in the' early part of this period. The
programme had been discredited and had been all but shut down. But the
need remained. Pakistan's fertility was shown by the World Fertility
Survey results for 1975-76 to be essentially unchanged in 20 years - a
total fertility rate of some 7 births per female over her reproductive
career, resulting in an annual growth rate of about 3.0
percent.

SummaryThis paper examines the question of whether there are consistent regional variations in the level and shape of the age-specific natural fertility curve using data for 45 less-developed countries drawn from a recent US Census Bureau compilation. In general there do not appear to be such variations. A remarkably consistent age pattern of natural fertility emerges, once the rates have been normalized and an adjustment made for age at first exposure to the risk of pregnancy. The results strongly support Coale's original natural fertility paradigm.

According to M. Cain and S. Lieberman (their views published in this journal), children represent for most poor, rural Bangladesh couples the only real way of attempting to insure against the risks and uncertainties inescapable in their harsh present and also future environment. The policy conclusion which is drawn from this is that a public sector programme to remove or at least reduce this economic uncertainty would have the important incidental effect of causing fertility to decline. Cain and Lieberman specifically propose an employment guarantee scheme. W. C. Robinson attempts to estimate how an "economic risk" reducing scheme might be implemented by the Bangladesh government, and how much it would cost. (DÜI-Sen)

SummaryThis paper presents results of a cross-sectional analysis of family planning programme costs per unit for a group of 28 countries. The costs per unit are analysed using regression techniques with variables of programme (age, scale and type of programme) and setting (demographic structure, socio-economic level of development, health, accessibility and other). The Couple-Years of Protection Index is used for standardization and the variation in personnel costs among the countries is allowed for. There is considerable variation among programmes in cost per unit. Some of this variation is explained by differences in socio-economic structure. The cost per unit, measured in US $, is considerably higher than is generally thought.

This is a remarkable volume. Not so much for what it says as
much as for what it never gets around to saying. The introduction states
that this is the "first major research study to be published under the
rural component" of the World Employment Programme. The volume consists
of studies of various aspects of rural income distribution in: Pakistan
(S.M. Naseem); Indian Punjab (Indira Rajaraman); Uttar Pradesh (Rohini
Nayyor); Bihar (Rohini Nayyor); Tamil Nadu (C.T. Kurien); Bangla¬desh
(A.R. Khan); Sri Lanka (E.L.H. Lee); West Malaysia (E.L.H. Lee); Java
(Ingrid Palmer); Philippines (A.R. Khan); and China (A.R. Khan). There
is also an anonymous introduction which attempts a synthesis and
summary.