| dc.description.abstract | This book was conceived with the conviction that the historic emergence of national family planning programs should be brought back to the world’s attention. As a new social instrument to address a new social problem, the family planning program swept much of the developing world in the 1960s. We felt that the memory of this vital experience was in danger of being lost; it deserved to be captured in a definitive fashion, partly for young people unaware of the programs’ origins, partly for the historicalrecord,andpartlyforlessonsthatapplytootherspheresofconcern.Thestory oftheappearance,forthefirsttimeinhumanhistory,oforganizednationalprograms devoted to the challenge of excessive and unwanted fertility should not be lost but should be mined for the lessons those programs might teach. This collection of essays was undertaken to answer that need. The years just after 1960 saw the appearance of a new fertility determinant— organized actions by whole societies to bring birthrates down to match falling death rates, and to ease the accompanying dislocations faced by educational, medical, economic, housing, and family system institutions, and others. Those actions were also meant to give women greater control over their own childbearing, and to relieve families from the unexpected burdens of raising more surviving children than in the past. The two results together, societal benefits and personal benefits, flowed from programs based on new contraceptive technologies that could be deployed to whole populations. This book sets forth the stories of those social and technological breakthroughs as they emerged in very diverse country circumstances. The financial generosity of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, supplementedbyagiftfromJohnSnowInc.andagiftfromananonymousdonorhavemade this book possible, while the Population Research Institute of the Pennsylvania State University kindly provided the necessary institutional linkage. We are especially indebtedtotheWorldBank,whichmadeanexceptiontoitsusualpracticeandentertainedtheinclusionofanoutsidepublishingproject,andwethankTonyMeashamfor recognizingandencouragingthepossibility.Manypersonshave helpedwiththisproject in many different ways and we can only list a few of them: Edward Bos, Carol Carpenter-Yaman, Gordon DeJong, Jane Delung, Peter Donaldson, Alice Faintich, MaryFisk,RobertGillespie,GavinJones,JackKantner,JoelLamstein,RichardLeete, Tom Merrick, Jim Phillips, Malcolm Potts, Ron Ridker, Carlos Rossel, Patrick Shields, Ruth Simmons, Steve Sinding, and Amy Tsui. The final tribute must go to the chapter authors, whose immediate enthusiasm for the project encouraged and sustained the editors. The authors worked hard on tight deadlines and freely gave additional time to read and critique one another’s efforts, knowing that their only compensation would be the professional satisfaction of setting down their unique experiences in the furthering of something good and new on the face of the Earth, a societal invention intended for the common good, that has endured and continues to evolve. We trust that this book will help confirm that legacy. | en_US |
