Socy 3012: Women, Development, and Fertility
Spring 2000
Outstanding questions were handed in. I have grouped some of them into the following categories:
INEVITABILITY
Are we really like bacteria (such as stated in The MATRIX) that continue to grow and consume all the resources, eventually leading to our own destruction?
Life expectancy has gone up as food supplies have increased. Why is this necessarily a good thing? Perhaps people are living too long and to too old an age. It is overpopulating the world so why is a longer life span always seen as beneficial? I guess cause none of us want to die.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Do you think that there will be a time when the government will regulate population growth and conception? If so, wouldn't this violate some human rights?
Do women (and men) have an absolute right to have children, and as many children as they should choose. Is China violating human rights by discriminating against and taxing families that choose to have more children?
Education for women does need to be addressed in many developing countries, and the governments should be in charge of that, but is it right for westerners to simply say that all that needs to be changed are the government priorities? I just think that this is difficult for many countries that have corrupt governments, or even dictatorships.
There have been many conferences to help stabilize population growth. Do the countries even want it? Do the women even want the help? Were they given a choice?
POPULATION POLICIES
In the readings on the Cairo conference, religion was mentioned in the planning. How much of an influence does religion play in the country's reproductive planning?
We discussed in class the decrease in Europe's population. Are the countries concerned with the decrease implementing any incentive programs to encourage increased population? If yes, what are these incentives?
If women ran the government would we have this much trouble budgeting for and implementing the policies proposed at Cairo?
POLITICAL ACTIVITY
I was wondering what kind of positive or negative changes occurred at the 1994 ICPD due to the inclusion of NGO's?
What made the Cairo conference productive and other similar conferences such as the 1954 World Pop. Conference in Rome and the 1965 World Pop. Conference in Belgrade not as productive?
CONSEQUENCES OF LOW FERTILITY
If we are so concerned about the population growing so much why are some countries concerned about their fertility rates going down? Isn't it a good thing because maybe the population will stabilize or slow down?
FERTILITY CONTROL
What really seems to be the most effective and safe way to control fertility?
Why shouldn't women be taught that having no family whatsoever can be a very rewarding life and that it doesn't take children and a husband for a woman to find fulfillment? To advance women maybe societies should be teaching their population this idea...perhaps? It seems to me that in a
country like China they should want most people to remain single so that they can cut their population in half if possible by not promoting reproduction.
Are population programs that focus on education and literacy for women enough to create changes in fertility patterns or does their need to be a fundamental shift in societal values of women to create changes?
POPULATION PROGRAMS
The first question that arose in my mind was of course, how effective have these measures been in the last five years? Success? Relative success? Are there more than twenty-one cities with inhabitants exceeding ten million?
Although the section "Finding the Balance" discusses the framework of policy and program for countries with particular needs, I'm curious how specific countries will meet the goals out-lined in the Program of Action. For example, what measures can the Chinese and Indian governments take to combat sex selective abortion? How can they emphasize the value of women, when the current reality of their societies is that men indeed have more economical, political and social worth?
Why is it that family planning services have been successful in some developing countries and not in others since, in terms of economy, they are around the same level?
Just over half the developing countries have comprehensive national population policies. What do the other half have? What or are they doing anything to help women?
THE ROLE OF MEN
I wanted to know what the average male can do to curb growth. The reading talked a lot about women and what they can and shouldn't do, but there has to be more that the males can do.
Are there any countries targeting men in family planning? If so, how and is it successful?
STATUS OF WOMEN
How do we go about raising the status of women in U.S. society, let alone all societies.
How do we wake the U.S. population out of its isolationist perspective, that what's good for America
is all that matters.
ABORTION
The reading said that China with 1.2 billion of Asia's 3.4 billion people has an average fertility rate of only 2 children per woman. If China uses sex selective abortion and tries to limit the amount of children, why then do they have such a huge population? IS this a new and current trend the sex-selective abortions to try and slow their population growth?
Is post-abortion counseling strongly promoted or even enforced in this country or others? If there is a comparison on countries that do and do not provide counseling what are the outcomes in terms of women's future wellbeing?
A question that I felt the article could have explained was if there are any patterns for the reasons for the abortions - and are they mostly in specific countries? I guess, if so, it might point out specific areas to
work on.
ECONOMICS AND RESOURCES
Although family planning and health care are extremely important, if over consumption of resources is the bottom line in concerns about population growth why hasn't that issue been brought to the frontlines in these discussions(Cairo)?
While the article warned readers that it was difficult and almost impossible to explain, I would like a more clear-cut explanation of the ways in which Population, Poverty, Economic Development, and Environmental Conservation are tied together. That was very confusing.
I was wondering if the negative affects of structural adjustment programs enforced by the World Bank were discussed at the 94' conference?
Another question I have is with regard to the continuous shift of the working population from the developed to the developing nations. I understand the effect on population movements, but more specifically, how will this shift affect the global economy?
MUSLIM
How exactly are Muslim countries expected to alter their centuries of culture in order to heighten the status of women (in their culture status can be seen in a different way than in the western one, so to them maybe the women to have status)? I'm just wondering what the plans are to convince Muslim countries to have a western attitude on certain issues. I am aware that some Muslim countries are changing some laws pertaining to women. I think that the article should have touched upon whether or not this was brought up.
The article expressed concern for the obstacle that Muslim countries and their belief systems may cause as far as increasing women status (in western view), and just the whole idea of what happens when women aren't given as much freedom as other cultures permit. What about matriarchal societies? What are the results as far as fertility in these groups?