Feature

Fertility Rates Key to Global Well Being

By Elizabeth Vivirito, MPP'10

Robert Engelman, author of More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want, visited campus on Wednesday, October 29, and discussed his book in which he followed human evolution to track a historical story of population. Central to his research is the importance of women as the agents of reproductive decision-making. The talk was cosponsored by the Center for International Studies and Harris School student groups-the Committee on International Affairs and Public Policy and the Chicago Environmental Policy Association.

"Women want more. Not more children, but more for their children," Engelman outlined as the crux of his argument. Evidence shows that throughout history women have taken an active role in the planning and prevention of pregnancies to ensure that their existing children get the attention, food, and protection they need to thrive.

Engelman served as vice president for programs at the Worldwatch Institute, where he specialized in issues related to population, reproductive health, global public health, food security, and climate change. This work led him to advocate for women as the active agents of their own lives and choices. "Where you find access to birth control alongside the autonomy of women, you find places with replacement fertility rates."

And that is the key to good population policies, he argued. From a public health perspective, countries should aim for low replacement fertility rates-a measurement of how many children, on average, all women must bear in order to keep the population stable from generation to generation; ideally 2.05 children per woman worldwide. In the United States and western Europe, these rates are currently 2.08 and 2.06, respectively. In developing regions, the rate is higher because fewer children survive childhood. In Africa, women average 2.9. If governments could improve the public health in these regions, more children would survive and women could bear fewer children.

Engelman cited evidence that since the 1960s, in every country where family planning programs were instituted, fertility rates went down. He argued that giving women the choice to determine the timing of their pregnancies is beneficial not only to the women but also their families and public health. "Strategic reproduction, or the timing of pregnancies, needs to be talked about more. Too often, population surveys focus on 'target family sizes.' But that ideal rubs up against the reality of women's lives." Limited access to wealth, food, and resources might make it more convenient to delay a pregnancy until the family feels able to provide for the child.

Strategic reproduction and replacement fertility rates are only two of the areas where Engelman wants to see population discourse change. Although international agreements call for broad global goals for improving human life, they "make no mention of population whatsoever, even though population issues are pivotal to the goals being achieved." But he hopes for greater public understanding and awareness of population-related issues because they are central to other environmental, social, and economic problems.

Lastly, Engelman argued that reproductive freedom could have beneficial ramifications on more than simply fertility rates. By improving women's access to birth control and their autonomy to make their own reproductive decisions, population growth could slow. And with less people, there could be greater progress in addressing issues like climate change, hunger, disease, lack of water, and the economic impacts of scarce resources.