As with the second stage, the third stage of the demographic transition was
rapid in East Asia. There was a sharp improvement in female education, infant
mortality and employment, together with rapid GDP growth, urbanization and
industrialization. Total fertility rates in rapid-growth Asia in the early 1950s
were similar to those of India in the mid-1960s; ranging from 4.4 per woman
in Hong Kong to more than 6 in Taiwan, China and Thailand. By the mid-
1980s fertility had fallen to 1.4 in Hong Kong and, by five children per woman,
to only 1.7 in Taiwan and slightly more than two in Thailand and China
(Naughton, 2007:166).
Demography and government policy
Since 1945 population policies of governments and donors have greatly
changed. William Easterly has recently argued that much of this effort was
useless. I criticize below his optimistic concept that investing in people is
enough, through a discussion of the phenomenon of missing women which
shows that perverse demographic outcomes may occur as a result of cultural
norms even in the context of rising ‘investing in people’.
Since 1945 developing-country governments (and donors) have intervened
actively in family planning. In 1951 India was the first country to adopt a
national population policy. Pakistan, South Korea, China and Fiji did so during
1960–62 and many other developing countries had done so by the late 1960s
and early 1970s. Despite the lingering legacy of Malthus, governments have
not uniformly tried to reduce population growth. In 1976, 40 out of 156 coun-
tries (both developing and high income) had policies to lower fertility, and 14
to raise fertility. In 1984,at the International Conference on Population in
Mexico City, a majority of African delegations reversed their previously pro-
fertility approach. In 1996, 80 out of 179 countries still had policies to lower
and 23 to raise fertility. Policies have broadened over time from a narrow
perspective on supplying and promoting contraception use to concerns with
the role and status of women in the household, and society more generally. The
1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo saw
an important shift in emphasis from population control towards sexual/repro-
ductive health (Tsui 2001).
Perhaps the most famous contemporary demographic story is that of
China. The government of China launched its first family planning initiative
in 1971. It promoted later marriage by raising the legal minimum age of
marriage, and encouraged longer spacing between births, and reduced fertil-
ity. The TFR declined from 5.8 in 1970 to 2.7 in 1978. By the late 1970s there
were renewed concerns. Those born in the baby-boom years during 1962 to
1971 were due to enter childbearing age during the late 1980s and early
1990s. In September 1980 the government pre-empted this anticipated surge
in population growth by passing the One-Child Policy, aiming at a stable
population of 1.2 billion by 2000. The policy penalized families having two or
Population and Economic Growth/Development 91