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Effectiveness of Population Policies

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World Population Policies

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Abstract

This chapter addresses one of the most difficult issues pertaining to population policies: their effectiveness. As population policies are being implemented, sometimes at great costs, policymakers want to measure their effectiveness and efficiency, as well as the time frame needed to obtain results. Policymakers also want to be informed about the usefulness of specific interventions and policy levers (Chasteland 1989: 89–109; see also Gendreau et al. 1994). In addition, those who implement policies need to be clear about the definition of inputs, outputs, and outcomes of different programs. Finally, policies that are effective according to specific criteria (e.g., reduction of fertility) may bring other unintended and sometimes adverse consequences (e.g., in areas of human rights and equity). These effects are to be taken into account as well when proposing, implementing, and assessing specific population policies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The notion of efficacy, i.e., the capacity to produce an effect, usually pertains to results obtained in controlled conditions.

  2. 2.

    Sometimes, outcomes are linked to specific objectives, and results to a change.

  3. 3.

    However, education has also an effect on fertility, independently of family planning.

  4. 4.

    This method, most useful to provide a user perspective, was first used in Nepal in the early 1980s; see Schuler et al. (1985).

  5. 5.

    Cost-benefit analysis is a technique used to decide whether to intervene or not to make a change. Such an analysis compares the value of benefits from the change under consideration and the costs associated to it. When considering family planning programs, a program with a high benefit-cost ratio will take priority over one with a low benefit-cost ratio (the ratio is determined by dividing the projected benefits by the projected costs); see United Nations (1997).

  6. 6.

    They are defined as “the proportion of women not using contraception who either want to cease further childbearing (unmet need for limiting) or who want to postpone the next birth at least two more years (unmet need for spacing)”; see Westoff (2006: 1) and World Bank (2010b).

  7. 7.

    This section draws heavily from: World Bank (2007a).

  8. 8.

    The RCT technique has long been used by the medical profession, but has been used more and more by economists over the past 15 years under the title “randomized experiments”. The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, has conducted a randomized experiment on contraceptive adoption, fertility, and the family in Zambia; see http://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/contraceptive-adoption-fertility-and-family-zambia, accessed on January 16, 2011.

  9. 9.

    The experiment was conducted under the auspices of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B).

  10. 10.

    Pritchett estimated each averted birth at USD180 in 1987, equivalent to 120 % of Bangladesh’s GDP per capita at the time; see Pritchett (1994: 38).

  11. 11.

    The program effort scale is based on 30 separate measures that are grouped into four components: policy, service, record keeping, and availability of methods; see Mauldin and Ross (1991): 351–352.

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    John F. May

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May, J.F. (2012). Effectiveness of Population Policies. In: World Population Policies. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2837-0_8

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