Chapter
7
Policy Responses to
Demographic Changes
From the field notes
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VIETNAM
“Beijing is a city transformed, and if the forest of skyscrapers does not
convince, then look around you as people stroll across Tienanmen Square
or along what is reputed to be the world’s longest main street. I must
confess that the symbolism in this photograph only manifested itself after
I had taken the picture—an obviously well-to-do local couple walking
toward me, their (probably) only child, a son, in tow, all under the
watchful eye of the police.”
98
KEY POINTS
◆ For practical purposes population data
are reported by country. But demographic
variation within countries can be very large
as, for example, in India.
cause religious ideologies and governmental goals may be incompatible.
◆ The most dramatic population-policy reversal in recent decades was carried out by
communist China.
◆ During the twentieth century national
governments pursued three kinds of population policy: expansive, eugenic, and restrictive.
◆ Many governments have sought to control immigration through laws limiting the
number or type of people who can cross
borders and become citizens, but few countries have succeeded in controlling immigration effectively.
◆ International agreements on population
policies are difficult to reach, in part be-
T
he foregoing chapters contain ample evidence of
an inescapable reality: try as they might, governments are unable to effectively control population change. The populations of some countries continue to grow far more rapidly than their administrations
would like. And in other countries where populations
are declining and aging, governments are hard put to get
families to have more youngsters than they choose to
have. In addition, despite their best efforts, governments are unable to control the flow of migrants across
their borders.
Indeed, national governments even find it difficult to
deal with population issues within their borders. We
noted earlier in Part Two that national statistics on population can be deceptive: they do not reveal regional variations within individual countries. In India, for example,
the population increase in some southern States is close
to the world average of 1.4 percent—but in India’s northeast some States record nearly triple the world average.
In the demographic arena, such regional variations complicate efforts to forge effective population policies.
In this chapter we take a look at national and international population policies in spatial as well as temporal
context. Much has changed over the past century or so:
there was a time when governments could openly favor
one ethnic group over another, close their borders to persons of particular racial ancestry, even segregate their
own people based on race. Although various forms of
more subtle discrimination still occur, these worst excesses have been terminated, in part through international pressure and action. But governments continue to
see ways to constrain excessive population growth, to
deal with the problems arising from population decline,
and to control immigration. ◆
◆ ROLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS
Cold War and of the difficulty in reaching international
agreement on any issue as sensitive as population.
China, still in the aftershocks of its costly Cultural Revolution, put the Marxist view bluntly: population control
was a capitalist plot designed to hamper the growth and
power of communist societies, and the Chinese would
not agree to any multinational plan to limit growth. On
the contrary, the Chinese applauded the (then) Soviet
policy of giving special recognition and awards to
women who had borne 10 children or more.
The Bucharest gathering was the first in a series of UNsponsored conferences on population issues. Although it
was marred by ideological disputes, the great majority of
Population change is a global issue, and the United Nations organizes conferences and meetings to address the
problem on a regular basis. The most revealing conferences are the Population Conferences held every 10
years since the first one in Bucharest, Romania, in 1974.
It is interesting to read the record of this meeting.
The population explosion was in full force, global
hunger and dislocation were being forecast, and controlling population growth seemed to be a worldwide priority. But the minutes of the 1974 Conference paint quite
another picture, and they remind us of the cost of the
99
100
Part Two Population Patterns and Processes
the world’s governments agreed on the urgency of the
population issue. China and the Soviet Union took similar
positions for different reasons: China saw family planning
as a capitalist plot, whereas the Soviet Union promoted
births because its population had not fully recovered from
the enormous losses it suffered during World War II. The
Soviet Union encouraged large families because it saw its
huge domain as underpopulated (a situation to which Stalinists had contributed by exterminating more than 30 million farmers, political opponents, and other dissidents during the 1930s). Nonetheless, the problems of spiraling
population growth were evident to most of the participating states, communist and noncommunist alike.
The UN Population Conference of 1984, held in
Mexico City, had a very different tone; gone were the
sense of urgency and the depth of ideological animosity.
The Green Revolution had narrowed the food gap, and
the specter of global famine, predicted by so many scientists, was receding. China, now in its post-Mao era,
F
rom the field notes
“Searing social contrasts abound in India’s overcrowded cities. Even in Bombay, India’s most prosperous
large city, hundreds of thousands of people live like this, in
the shadow of modern apartment buildings. Within seconds
we were surrounded by a crowd of people asking for help of
any kind, their ages ranging from the very young to the very
old. Somehow this scene was more troubling here in well-off
Bombay than in Calcutta or Madras, but it typified India’s
urban problems everywhere.” (Note: the names of Bombay
and Madras were changed after this field note was written.)
had reversed its position on population growth. It had
now embarked on a severely restrictive population policy, and its growth rate had declined dramatically—so
much so that the Beijing regime had been awarded a
United Nations medal for achieving rapid reduction in
the national birth rate. In addition, during the Reagan
(Republican) era the United States did not take an active
role in support of family planning. It kept a relatively low
profile at the conference, and no major confrontations
like those at Bucharest occurred.
During the 1994 conference, held in Cairo, Egypt, a
new and potentially crucial division emerged among the
180 countries represented. The great majority of these
states wanted to endorse a plan to be known as the
“Cairo Strategy,” a program that would combine family
planning with sex education in schools, along with other
initiatives to achieve reduced population-growth rates in
developing countries. But a relatively small group of
conservative Roman Catholic and Muslim countries,
strongly supported by the Vatican, blocked final agreement on this program. These countries refused to approve proposals to educate school-age youngsters on
matters of sex and to make contraceptives more readily
available. Roman Catholic countries such as Argentina,
Nicaragua, and Guatemala argued that the program
should endorse parental control over children’s sex education rather than high school training (which had been
proposed by Mexico). Muslim countries asserted that
population-control measures of any kind were inconsistent with Islamic precepts (which was the basis for Saudi
Arabia’s refusal to participate at all).
CHAPTER 7 Policy Responses to Demographic Changes
Thus the Cairo Conference may have opened a new
chapter in the ongoing struggle to constrain population
growth; Cold War ideological conflict has now been replaced by strife between religious fundamentalism and
secularism. The 2004 Conference will undoubtedly continue the debate begun in Cairo, where a number of delegations denounced secular society. These arguments
pushed into the background a key to reducing population growth: the education of women and the strengthening of their rights in all societies (see Chapter 31). When
women have access to education and paid employment,
birth rates decline and development accelerates. Data
from the World Bank indicate that women without some
high school education have an average of seven children; the average drops to three for women who attend
high school. And because there is more time between
births, the health of women and children also improves,
saving medical costs for the society as a whole.
Religious fundamentalism can work against the interests of women in societies of all kinds. Many observers argue that the poverty associated with rapid
population growth is best combated by improving the
status of women in traditional society. On this matter
the conference made little progress.
◆ NATIONAL POPULATION
POLICIES
Over the past century, many of the world’s governments
have instituted policies designed to influence the overall
growth rate or ethnic ratios within the population. Certain policies directly affect the birth rate via laws that
range from subsidization of abortion to forced sterilization. Others influence family size through taxation or
subvention. These policies fall into three groups: expansive, eugenic, and restrictive.
The former Soviet Union and China under Mao Zedong led other communist societies in expansive population policies, which encourage large families and
raise the rate of natural increase. Ideological, anticapitalist motives drove those policies, now abandoned. But
today, some countries are again pursuing expansive population policies—because their populations are aging
and declining. We have already taken note of the situation in Europe, where France has embarked on a policy
to encourage (through tax incentives and by other fiscal
means) families to have more children. Another case is
Singapore, where, shortly after its secession from
Malaysia (1965), the government instituted a restrictive
population policy. Sterilization was encouraged, abortion was legalized, and families with more than two
children were fiscally punished. So successful was this
policy that the population stopped growing and started
aging. At this point, the government reversed itself, instituting an expansive population policy. Singapore’s expe-
101
rience underscores the difficulties governments face
when trying to constrain population growth: the island’s
city-state population is small (4.1 million), well-educated,
and tightly ruled by an autocratic government—and still
its population policies had unintended consequences.
In the past, some governments engaged in eugenic
population policies, which were designed to favor
one racial or cultural sector of the population over others. The ultimate example of “eugenics” was Nazi Germany, but other countries also pursued such strategies,
though in more subtle ways. Up until the time of the
Civil Rights movement, some accuse the United States of
pursuing social policies tinged with eugenics that
worked against the interests of African-Americans;
Japan’s nearly homogeneous culture is sometimes said
to result from deliberately eugenic social policies. Eugenic population policies can be practiced covertly
through discriminatory taxation, biased allocation of resources, and other forms of racial favoritism.
Today the majority of the world’s governments seek
to reduce the rate of natural increase through various
forms of restrictive population policies. These policies range from toleration of officially unapproved
means of birth control to outright prohibition of large
families. As we note later in this chapter, China’s “onechild-only” policy, instituted after the end of the Maoist
period, had spectacular effect, reducing China’s growth
rate from one of the world’s fastest to one of the developing world’s slowest. But again the policy had unintended consequences and has been relaxed somewhat
in recent years.
Limitations Many governments have learned that
changing circumstances tend to overtake their carefully
constructed population policies; the case of Singapore is
one among these. Urbanization and industrialization inhibit population growth more effectively than restrictive
population policies can; the liberation and education of
women in traditionally male-dominant societies does
more than sex education and condoms. Restricting the
immigration of foreign workers will do more to age a
population than any population policy can. Cultural tradition (especially religion) can neutralize the best-formulated strategies. Still, governments must keep trying because population continues to grow.
Contradictions No one who has looked carefully at
the map of world population growth (Fig. 5-1) will have
failed to note that natural increase is at its lowest in the
very heart of the Roman Catholic world. (Italy’s population is actually declining today.) Adherence to Catholic
doctrine, it would appear, is far stronger in areas remote from the Vatican than within the Catholic core.
Another case in point is in the Philippines, Asia’s only
Roman Catholic country (population: 84 million). Here,
the still-powerful church opposes the use of artificial
102
Part Two Population Patterns and Processes
contraceptives, and church and state have been locked
in a battle over birth control. Abortion is prohibited by
the country’s constitution. When Manila’s cardinal demanded that the Philippine government boycott the
Cairo Conference on Population and Development in
1994, the issue roiled the nation. But the Philippines is a
democracy, and while Manila did send a delegation to
Cairo, the government could not afford to ignore the
pronouncements of the church. In the first decade of the
twenty-first century, population growth in the Philippines remained one of Asia’s highest at 2.2 percent, with
a doubling time of only 31 years.
In the Islamic realm, the geographic situation seems
to be the opposite. Saudi Arabia, home of Mecca and the
heart of the Muslim world, has one of the globe’s fastest
growth rates (3.0 percent; doubling time 23 years). But in
far-off Indonesia (the Philippines’ neighbor), the government in 1970 began a nationwide family-planning program. When fundamentalist Muslim leaders objected, the
government used a combination of coercion and inducement to negate their influence. Eventually, Indonesia’s
family-planning program came to be regarded as the
most successful in the Muslim world: in 1970 the country’s rate of natural increase was over 2.5 percent; by
2000 it was down to 1.6 percent, far below that of the
Philippines. Doubling time rose from 28 to 44 years.
◆ THREE CASE STUDIES
The governments of three countries in Asia which, in
combination, account for 40 percent of the world’s population have had quite different experiences in their efforts
to institute policies to limit and control population growth.
The consequences of their efforts have varied widely—
and have had a crucial impact on global prospects.
Japan
The Japanese experience is a prime example of success—
perhaps too much success—in population control. During Japan’s nineteenth- and early twentieth-century era
of modernization, expansion, and military victories, families were encouraged to have several children. However, Japan also had growing urban centers, which
tended to somewhat reduce the birth rate. This combination of circumstances helped stabilize the rate of population growth.
At the end of World War II, hundreds of thousands
of Japanese nationals returned from the colonies. Soldiers came home and rejoined their families. During the
American occupation medical services and public health
were improved. The net result was an unprecedented increase in the birth rate and a simultaneous drop in death
rates. Japan’s rate of growth, which over the decades had
averaged about 1.3 percent, suddenly rose to 2.0 percent
per year. That represents a doubling time of 35 years,
and with Japan’s population already about 70 million at
the time, it created a crisis.
In 1948 the Japanese government took action, and the
results can be seen in the population pyramid in Figure
5-5. The Eugenic Protection Act legalized abortions for
“social, medical, and economic reasons.” Contraceptives
were made available, and family-planning clinics were set
up throughout the country. Although contraception and
female sterilization (also made widely available) helped
reduce the birth rate, it was the enormous number of
abortions that really brought it down. So many abortions
were performed—perhaps 7 to 8 million in a decade—
that the Japanese authorities began to worry about their
effect on the well-being of the nation. They then began to
use propaganda and educational programs to encourage
contraception.
As a result of these measures, the birth rate, which
had been over 34 per 1000 in 1947, had fallen to 18 per
thousand just one decade later and was reduced to 13
per thousand by 1985. Meanwhile, the death rate declined from 14.2 in 1948 to 7.5 in 1958 to 6.0 in 1985.
Thus in the early 1980s Japan’s population, growing at
less than 1 percent per year, increased by about 1 million
annually. Immigration contributed little to population
growth, and emigration also had little effect.
In the 1990s, Japan’s demographic situation became
a matter of growing concern for its leaders. The country’s
fertility rate had fallen to a new low of just over 1.5, far
below the 2.1 needed to maintain the population without loss. (This is still higher than the prevailing TFR in
West Germany just before reunification, which was
below 1.3.) The effects of this decline can be seen in projections of Japan’s future population, which will reach a
peak of approximately 127 million in 2007 and then
begin a slow but accelerating decline down (by some
projections) to 70 million by 2060.
In 1991, the Japanese government increased the
benefits available to parents and embarked on an expansionist population policy. But under the special conditions of Japanese life it will be difficult to reverse the
trend just described. Japan is a small country, about the
size of Montana. It is among the world’s most highly urbanized, industrialized, and regimented societies. Living
space is at a premium; living costs are high. The financial
and social burdens of raising a child are great, and parents are well aware that some child benefits will not be
much help. So Japan, like Germany, faces an aging population, a dwindling workforce, and a shrinking tax base
at a time when welfare and pension costs are rising.
What alternatives are available? Labor immigration is
one possibility, but the Japanese refuse to allow large
numbers of foreign workers into their nearly homogeneous island nation. A Singapore-style campaign to reverse the downward population spiral is not likely in
Japan, nor would it be likely to work. For the time being,
Japan will probably turn to an old ally—technology. It
CHAPTER 7 Policy Responses to Demographic Changes
still is possible to turn over more work to robots and
other advanced technologies in order to increase productivity. Some observers also suggest that many more
women will enter the skilled workforce in the early
twenty-first century.
None of this, however, will ultimately protect Japan
from the social and economic adjustments that must
accompany less-than-zero or negative population
growth. With its borders effectively closed to immigration, its future problems will be substantially selfimposed, proving again that in this age of interaction
and interconnection, cultural isolation is no guarantee
of a secure future.
plex as India are enormous. India is a federation of 28
States and 7 so-called Union Territories, and the individual States differ greatly both culturally and politically. As
in all true federations, the will of the federal government
cannot be forcibly imposed on the States.
Earlier we mentioned the regional variation in
India’s rate of population growth (Fig. 7-1). From a demographic standpoint, in fact, there are several Indias.
Population growth is most rapid (and still explosive) in
Assam and neighboring states adjacent to Bangladesh. In
Nagaland and Mizoram, the rate of natural increase during the 1970s actually exceeded 4.5 percent, one of the
world’s highest. It has been about 2.5 percent in India’s
great eastern population cluster in the lower GangesBrahmaputra Basin. As Figure 7-1 shows, the growth rate
in the southern peninsula has been below the national
average. The national average for population growth
does not reveal these internal spatial variations. When
the food situation was less secure than it has been in recent years, hunger often afflicted the east at a time when
food was adequate in the west.
Population planning began on a shoestring budget
in the 1950s, not long after India became independent.
Limited funds were made available for family-planning
India
Demographers predict that sometime during the first half
of the twenty-first century India will overtake China as the
world’s most populous country—if India’s political framework holds together. In the late 1990s, India’s population
was still growing at a rate of about 1.9 percent, adding over
18 million per year to a population approaching 1 billion.
The problems involved in carrying out a coordinated population policy in a country as culturally com-
0
AFGHANISTAN
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RECENT POPULATION
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103
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deBlij Human W-168 Figure 34-2
Figure 7-1 Recent Population Growth
Rates in India. Data from census of India
since 1970 and from demographic reports
of individual State agencies were used to
derive yearly population growth rates.
104
Part Two Population Patterns and Processes
clinics and programs, but government leaders themselves were not aware of the real dimensions of the population explosion in progress at the time. In the 1960s,
however, India’s official census left no doubt, and the
government’s investment in population planning increased. A national program was instituted, and the
States were encouraged to join.
Despite this national effort, rapid population growth
continued, especially in the eastern States. Also, social
problems arose in some of the States where the campaign was pursued most vigorously. The State of Maharashtra instituted a plan that required sterilization of anyone with three children or more. Public opposition led to
rioting and the program was abandoned, but not before
3.7 million people had been sterilized. Other States also
engaged in compulsory sterilization programs, but the
social and political costs were heavy. Eventually, a total
of 22.5 million people were sterilized, but this form of
population control could not be sustained for long.
Today Indian State governments are using advertising and persuasion to encourage families to have fewer
children. Almost everywhere one can see posters urging
people to have small families, and a network of clinics
has been established to aid women even in the remotest
villages. As Figure 7-1 indicates, progress has been made
in some areas, not only in the better educated areas of
the south but elsewhere as well. We should keep in
mind that several of India’s States have 100 million inhabitants or more, which would put them among the
world’s larger countries. Any reduction in population
growth rates in such States is a major achievement. However, India does not have enough resources to achieve a
significant decline in population growth rates in the nation as a whole.
F
China
rom the field notes
“China’s communist regime could institute a onechild-only policy and enforce it, but India is a democracy,
and India’s States have considerable autonomy. Above this
entrance to a suite of medical offices was some evidence of
recent disputes over family planning in the State of Maharashtra: GOVERNMENT APPROVED URBAN FAMILY PLANNING CENTRE IS CLOSED FROM 1.1/1996, says one notice;
FREE FAMILY PLANNING STERILISATION OPERATION
NOW NOT CONDUCTED HERE FROM 1.1/1996, says another. These notices mark the outcome of decisions by the
Maharashtra government to overrule federal family-planning
initiatives; here is one reason why India’s rate of population
growth remains comparatively high.”
For nearly 30 years after the communist government
took power, China’s demography was a mystery to the
outside world. Estimates of China’s population and its
rate of natural increase varied widely. In 1978 the World
Bank’s World Development Report estimated the Chinese population at 826 million. Shortly thereafter the
Chinese government announced that the 1 billion mark
had been passed. Guesses about China’s population had
been wrong by as much as 200 million!
If there were doubts about the size of China’s population, the political and social regime of Mao Zedong left
CHAPTER 7 Policy Responses to Demographic Changes
no doubts about its views on family planning. At the
1974 Bucharest Conference, as noted earlier, the Chinese
representative denounced population policies as imperialist tools designed to sap the strength of developing
countries.
After Mao’s death in 1976, China’s new leaders expressed very different views. If China was to modernize,
they said, population growth would have to be brought
under control. In 1979 they launched a policy to induce
married couples to have only one child. This would have
stabilized China’s population at about 1.2 billion by the
end of the century.
The one-child policy was applied loosely at first,
but when it had less than the desired effect, it was enforced more strictly. The results were dramatic. In 1970,
China’s population was growing at a rate of 2.4 percent
(as estimated by China’s own planners); by 1985, it was
down to 1.1 percent. In 1983, by which time the growth
rate had been reduced to 1.2 percent, the United Nations
gave China (along with India) its first Family-Planning
Award.
These statistics are encouraging, but they conceal
the stresses the policies impose on families. After 1982,
the government made it mandatory for women to use
contraceptive devices after they had their one child. If a
second child was born, one of the parents would have to
be sterilized. Only members of China’s recognized minorities (less than 3 percent of the total population) were
exempt from these rules.
Such rules imposed severe hardships, especially on
farming families. Many hands are needed to do farm
work, and large families are common in many rural
areas. Therefore, many Chinese families defied the authorities: they kept pregnant women out of sight, did not
register births, and prevented inspectors from visiting
villages.
In response, the government took drastic action.
Those who violated the rules were fired from their jobs,
had their farmlands taken away, lost many benefits, and
were otherwise put at a disadvantage. In some parts
of China the punishment was even worse: pregnant
women known to have one or two children were arrested at work, in the fields, or at home and taken to
abortion clinics to have their babies aborted—sometimes
after more than six months of pregnancy. The national
policies were imposed more harshly in some provinces
than in others. Southeast China appears to have been targeted most severely.
China’s Ministry of Public Health estimates that during the first six years of the population-control campaign, nearly 70 million abortions were performed in the
country (where abortion was regarded as murder just a
generation earlier). In addition, during the 1980s more
than 20 million persons were sterilized annually (three
times as many women as men), according to government reports.
105
The effectiveness of the Chinese population policies
was ensured, not only by government incentives and
punishments, but also through the actions of Communist
Party officials and members. Through promises of advancements and cash payments for local compliance,
party members became, in effect, the birth-control police. No village, neighborhood, factory, or collective escaped constant scrutiny.
But China is changing. In 1984, in response to a rising tide of complaints from rural areas, the government
relaxed its one-child policy in the countryside. A couple
whose first child was a daughter were allowed to have a
second child after a four-year wait. Then the Partyimposed system of controls began to break down as enforcement weakened, people found more effective ways
of circumventing the rules (sending an illegally pregnant
woman to distant family members to await the birth, for
example), and peasants with rising incomes could afford
to pay the fine for unauthorized births. Corruption, an
endemic problem in China, also enabled some people to
evade punishment for violations. Briefly China’s growth
rate moved upward again, and China’s census revealed
that its goal for the end of the twentieth century—a stable population of 1.32 billion—had not been achieved;
its total had been exceeded by 80 million. But the official
data for the year 2000 are more optimistic: a growth rate
of only 0.9 percent (see Table in Resource B).
China’s one-child-only policy has had a major social
impact in a society where sons carry on the family name.
In the cities a one-child policy was feasible. In the tradition-bound countryside, however, where large families
have long been the norm, the notion of one (possibly female) child was not acceptable. Observers reported that
the one-child policy led to female infanticide and that
hundreds of thousands of such killings went unreported
at the height of the one-child-only campaign. Demographers estimated that the number of surviving male children exceeded females by 300,000 annually. China’s
own population experts have expressed concern over
this imbalance. In the future males will greatly outnumber females, with unpredictable social consequences.
Thus China’s relentless drive for zero population
growth eroded the traditions of Chinese society and
brought misery to millions of people. Chinese government and Communist Party officials admit that the policy, when strictly applied, was severe. But they argue
that in a country with 100 million excess births, many
millions of people will be mired in stagnation and
poverty. To get ahead, they argue, the country cannot
allow its material gains to be negated by an ever-growing population.
China’s experience underscores the depth of the
population dilemma. Even with an authoritarian government backed by party machinery, strict policies could
not be enforced over the long term. Significant shortterm gains were quickly wiped out, and population
106
Part Two Population Patterns and Processes
growth once again became an obstacle to modernization. Given China’s experience, India’s regional progress
is all the more remarkable.
◆ POLICIES TARGETING
MIGRATION
The control of immigration, legal and illegal, the problem of asylum seekers, genuine and fraudulent, and the
fate of cross-border refugees, permanent and temporary,
have become hot issues around the world. In Europe,
right-wing political parties whip up anti-immigrant sentiment. In California, the state government demands federal help to provide services for hundreds of thousands
of illegal immigrants; if the federal government cannot
control its borders, the argument goes, the States should
not have to foot the bill. In Cuba, the Castro regime has
used migration as a threat: in August 1994, Castro threatened to open Cuba’s doors to a flood of emigrants that
“will make the Mariel Boatlift look like child’s play.” And
in the United States the government faced reproach for
preventing tens of thousands of Haitians from entering
Florida.
Efforts to restrict migrations are nothing new, however. Media coverage, democratic debate, and political
wrangling only make it seem so. China’s Great Wall was
built in part as a defensive measure but also as a barrier
to emigration (by Chinese beyond the sphere of their authorities) and immigration (mainly by Mongol “barbarians” from the northern plains). The Berlin Wall, the
Korean DMZ (demilitarized zone), the fences along the
Rio Grande—all evince the desire of governments to
control the movement of people across their borders.
Legal Restrictions
Usually, however, the obstacles placed in the way of potential immigrants are legal, not physical. Restrictive legislation made its appearance in the United States in 1882,
when Congress approved the Oriental Exclusion Acts
(1882 to 1907). These immigration laws were designed to restrict the immigration of Chinese people to
California. In 1901 Australia’s government approved the
Immigration Restriction Act, which terminated all nonwhite immigration into the newly united Commonwealth. This act, too, was aimed primarily at Japanese
and Chinese immigrants (but it included South Asians as
well). It also had the effect of prohibiting immigration by
South Pacific islanders who had entered Australia to
work on the large sugar plantations. These workers, the
Kanakas, were the target of a provision that facilitated
their deportation by the end of 1906. The White Australia
Policy was one of the issues on which the Australian
colonies were united prior to the establishment of the
Commonwealth, and it remained in effect until it was
modified in 1972 and again in 1979.
In the United States, restrictive legislation affecting
European immigrants was passed in 1921. The balance
of European immigration had been shifting from Western Europe to Southern and Eastern Europe, and many
immigrants had no training or resources—at a time when
industry’s need for skilled labor was declining. The 1921
legislation was a quota law. Each year each European
country could permit the emigration to the United States
of 3 percent of the number of its nationals living in
America in 1910. This had the effect of limiting annual
immigration to about 357,000 Europeans, most of them
from Western Europe. In 1924 the Immigration Act lowered the quota to 2 percent and made 1890 the base
year; this further reduced the annual total to 150,000
immigrants.
The National Origins Law took effect in 1929. It sustained the limit of 150,000 immigrants per year, but it
also tied immigration quotas to the national origins of
the U.S. population in 1920. This law had the effect of
preventing the immigration of Asians. Immigration
slowed to a trickle during the 1930s, and in some years
emigration actually exceeded immigration.
After 1940, the restrictions on immigration to the
United States were modified. In 1943 China was given
equal status with European countries, and in 1952 Japan
received similar status. A new Immigration and Nationality Act (1952) was designed to incorporate all preceding
legislation, establishing quotas for all countries and limiting total immigration to under 160,000. However, far
more immigrants entered the country as displaced persons (refugees), thereby filling quotas for years ahead.
Estimates vary, but more than 7 million immigrants may
have entered the United States as refugees between 1945
(the end of World War II in Europe) and 1970. The 1952
law was acknowledged to be a failure, and in 1965 the
quota system was abolished. New limits were set:
170,000 immigrants per year from countries outside the
Western Hemisphere and 120,000 from countries in the
Americas. Nevertheless, in the 1970s and 1980s the number of Cuban, Haitian, and Mexican arrivals far exceeded
these limitations.
The United States and Australia are not the only
countries that have restricted immigration. Many countries practice selective immigration, in which individuals
with certain backgrounds (criminal records, poor health,
subversive activities) are barred from entering. Other
countries have specific requirements. For example,
South Africa long demanded “pure” European descent;
New Zealand favored persons of British birth and
parentage; Brazil preferred people with a farming background; and Singapore courts financially secure persons
of Chinese ancestry. Today South American countries
place limits on the number of immigrants who may cross
their borders, and quota systems are being instituted.
Thailand has restricted Chinese immigration, and Myanmar (Burma) limits immigration from neighboring India.
CHAPTER 7 Policy Responses to Demographic Changes
In France, problems associated with the large and growing Arab population from North Africa have resulted in
calls for repatriation of those without residency permits
and for restrictions on further immigration from the former French North African colonies (Algeria, Morocco,
and Tunisia).
As the world’s population mushrooms, the volume
of migrants will likewise expand. In an increasingly
107
open and interconnected world, neither physical barriers nor politically motivated legislation will stem tides
that are as old as human history. Migrations will also
further complicate an already complex global cultural
pattern. What are some of the principal features of the
global cultural pattern, and what is the significance of
those patterns? We turn to these questions in the next
two parts.
◆ KEY TERMS ◆
eugenic population policy
Eugenic Protection Act
expansive population policy
immigration laws
negative population growth
one-child policy
restrictive population policy
◆ APPLYING GEOGRAPHIC KNOWLEDGE ◆
1. For many years population geographers and others
have been concerned over the continuing rapid growth
of the world’s population. But some countries, having
traversed the demographic transition, now confront the
reality of stable or even declining populations. What
are the impacts of negative population growth on
countries’ cultural and economic geographies?
2. Population policies designed to influence the growth
of national populations tend to have regional ramifications; that is, their impact varies regionally. Working at the national and subnational scale, demonstrate
how this statement applies to three countries that
have adopted population policies.
Part Two
POPULATION PATTERNS AND PROCESSES
A
t Issue: Revisited
How serious a problem is population growth?
Should lowering the world’s population growth
rate be a global objective? Any attempt to address the
hard questions about population growth must begin with
the fundamental geographical concept of scale. Continued
rapid global population growth presents troubling problems
for the twenty-first century, but look regionally instead of
globally and it is clear that numbers aren’t the only issue. As
we confront the population issue, different regions face
different challenges. No place, however, can afford to
exempt itself from those challenges, for in the mix of
expanding numbers, consumption, economic development,
technology, and women’s rights lies the future of the
Earth’s environments and the people who inhabit them.
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