Paying for the pills
Of the one billion dollars currently spent each year on family planning programmes in the Third World, one-tenth is contributed by the couples themselves, two-fifths by Third World governments and half by governments and aid agencies in the rich world.

Some rich world governments see population planning in poor countries as a key aid priority. In 1972 the US spent three times as much on family planning programmes in the Third World as it did on health programmes²

Fertility and equality
It is not just the wealth of a nation that influences whether people will choose to have fewer children. Far more important is the distribution of that wealth to individual families³

Spoilt for choice
A government's plans are sometimes implemented with little or no regard for an individual's family plans The lists of countries below are not necessarily exhaustive, but give an indication of the extent to which human rights are being compromised.

Prohibition Countries which forbid or restrict access to contraception: CHAD, EQUATORIAL GUINEA, GABON, GREECE, IRELAND, MALAWI, MALTA, LIBYA, KAMPUCHEA, SAUDI ARABIA'

Coercion Countries where forced sterilizations have been recorded on a significant scale since 1970: BANGLADESH, BOLIVIA, BRAZIL, COLOMBIA, EL SALVADOR, GUATEMALA, INDIA, INDONESIA, MEXICO, PUERTO RICO, US'

Bribery Countries paying money to users of contraception: BANGLADESH, EGYPT, INDIA, INDONESIA, MALAYSIA, MAURITIUS, NEPAL, SOUTH KOREA, SRI LANKA, THAILAND, TUNISIA, VIETNAM⁸

Every child a wanted child?
It is a truism that every woman wants to be able to choose how many children she has. But she may not always choose to have fewer children.⁹

Too close, too many, too young
Family planning is not just used for limiting unwanted pregnancies; it can also be used to time the arrival of a wanted child and thereby increase its chances of survival.

· SOUTH INDIA
A child born less than a year after its elder sibling is twice as likely to die in infancy than a child born two to three years after.¹⁰

· EL SALVADOR
A child in a family with five children is twice as likely to die in infancy as child in a family of three children.¹⁰

· ARGENTINA
A child born to a teenage mother is twice as likely to die in infancy as a child born to a mother aged between 25 and 29.¹⁰

Choosing fewer children
Women of different ages were asked about the number of children in the 'ideal family'. In all regions younger women gave a smaller number, indicating a worldwide trend towards a desire for smaller families⁹

The family planning boom
Today there are more women using modern contraception than ever before. An estimated 50% of women in the world who want to stop having children are able to fulfil that wish by these means.

Type of contraception
An estimated 270 million women are currently using some form of contraception, but this figure and the table below are likely to underestimate - by a wide margin - the numbers of women using traditional methods⁷. Notice the lack of alternatives in China.

Abortion
Worldwide there is one abortion for every three live births. That adds up to over 50 million a year, half of which are performed illegally. 39% of women live in countries where abortion is freely available. 28% live in countries where it is illegal or legal only when the woman's life is threatened.¹²

The cost of illegality

• BOLIVIA 60% of the obstetric health budget is spent on patching up botched, illegal abortions⁸
• US Abortion deaths dropped from 292 to 36 a year when abortion was legalized in 1973⁸

60 years on ...
The exact date when world population is expected to stabilize (i.e. when the number of babies born equals the number of people dying) is revised every year as population growth rates change. At present the predicted date of stabilization is 2045.³

Where will all the people be?

The top ten in 2045

The world of five billion
This year world population tipped the scales at five billion.¹² It is growing at a rate of around a billion every 12 years. Every minute it grows by 150; every day by 220,000; every year by 80 million. But this stupendous growth rate is starting to slow down and world population is expected to stabilize at around ten billion less than 60 years from now.³ This prediction is an extrapolation from current declines in birth rates, which are, in turn, dependent on economic development and availability of contraception.

Sources:
1 United Nations Fund for Population Activities, 1983 Report.
2 Bradshaw et al, 1977, cited in Simon, J., The Ultimate Resource, Princetown University Press, 1981.
3 World Bank Development Report, World Bank, 1987.
4 GNP = Gross National Product.
5 Average completed family size a curent fertility rates.
6 People magazine, various issues, International Planned Parenthood Federtion.
7 Seager, J., and Olson, A., Women in the World, Pan, 1986.
8 Hartmann, B., Reproductive Rights and Wrongs, Harper and Row, 1987.
9 World Fertility Survey, 1985.
10 The State of the World's Children, UNICEF, 1984.
11 Recent Levels and Trends of Contraception Use as Assessed in 1983, United Nations, 1984.
12 Teitze, C., Induced Abortion: A World Review, I 1983.
13 1 billion = 1,000 million.