Promoting Population Stabilization: Incentives for Small Families. Worldwatch Paper 54.

A wide variety of incentive and disincentive programs are presented in an effort to stabilize the population and prevent bankruptcy of physical, economic, and social resources, particularly in countries like India and China. Following an introduction, the document discusses several programs, including (1) the use of small one-time payments for individuals who become sterilized and to family planning workers or doctors for each acceptor recruited; (2) incentives that improve welfare such as deferred incentive schemes like the "No-Birth Bonus Scheme" by private industry or government pension programs, in which accounts are credited with later collection contingent upon success in having a small family; (3) community development incentives in which whole villages are rewarded with development programs if the birth rate falls; (4) penalization of large families by imposing costs or withholding benefits; (5) emergency measures such as India's compulsory sterilization and China's one-child policy; and (6) expansion of the role of other incentive and disincentive schemes such as paying women to remain childless longer and developing programs to improve the lot of women. Also provided are four data tables illustrating countries offering small, one-time payments; average number of living children of women undergoing sterilization; fertility declines of all of India and the Tea Estates with and without "No-Birth Bonus" schemes; and Singapore's birthrate from 1960-1982. (LH)