Soviet Union Population Growth Policy
Population growth can be caused by government policies that affect birth rates and influence family size. There are three groups of population increase and decrease
- Expansive: encourage large families to raise the rate of natural increase
- Eugenic: designed to favor one racial or cultural sector of the population over others
- Restrictive: try and implement policies in order to decrease the population and total fertility rate
These policies are created to control the population and the growth of citizens within the country. One example of expansive policy The Soviet Union and China. The total fertility rate (TFR) in Russia was 2.04 in 1980 and had fallen to 1.34 by the mid-2000s (but has not rebounded to 1.7). This happened because of the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Many countries make rules or laws in order to persuade families in countries to try and increase or decline TFRs. “The Russian government began to offer cash subsidies of $10,000 to women who give birth to a second or third child” (Blij, Murphy, Fouberg p. 56). This is an example of expansion since there was a decline in population it could affect the economy by a shortage of laborers. The negative of this expansion policy is that countries would have to continue to give back in order to increase population but that also could affect the economy. The government would have to continue to pay or give handouts so that families would try to have more children. A positive of this would be population growth would increase allowing for stronger countries with a stronger core or semi-periphery class.
RUSSIAN CHILDREN AT RED SQUARE IN SAINT BASILS
Japan’s Population Growth Policy
Japan also went through an expansion process because of their low fertility rates. Japan had three expansion policies
- Childcare services
- Parental leave schemes
- Monetary assistance in form of child allowances
First, the number of child centers increased which cause demand for them. There could be positives and negatives of these actions. A positive would help parents stress and would help them go to work frequently. By doing this Japanese parent’s income would increase so that they and their children could live better lives. A negative for increasing childcare centers is it would cost a lot. The Japanese government would have to fund these centers which wouldn’t be cheap. Secondly, the government of Japan offered 12 of parental leave to ensure children are well taken care of and that parents have time to afford a comfortable place for children to live at home. A positive is an increase in income for parents and a negative would cause less work around the house considering both parents would be out making a wage for the family. Shortly after WWII, child per women declined to about 2.1. This being said there was also a decline in marriages which could also cause low fertility rates. “As of 2010, 11% of women and 20% of men at the age of 50 had never been married” (Policy Brief No. 11). The strain that this put on Japan is what caused for the decline in TFR.
China’s Population Decrease Policy
China implements its own policy in order to decrease their population. This policy is known as the “one-child policy”. This policy “reduced china’s growth rate from one of the world’s fastest to one of the world’s slowest” (Blij, Muphy, Fouberg). From one of the fastest-growing countries to one of the slowest made solved China’s problem of population, but it wouldn’t happen overnight. Overpopulation is a problem for many reasons, it could cause for a shortage of jobs, and shortage of food. One problem that I didn’t think about was schooling for children. “There are too many children and the competition is too high. If you don’t do well in school you can’t get into a good university, and then maybe you can’t get a good job in the future” (Lily Kuo). Competition will always be a factor. The chances of things going your way would fall and it would make people work harder than ever to try and accomplish and succeed in certain things. This is the reason for restriction policies. One positive of China’s one-child policy would eliminate overpopulation and it would no longer be an issue over a period of time. A negative of this policy would children would no longer be able to know what it’s like to have siblings. Also, parents would not know what it’s like to have a big family that they could support. China’s policy caused problems but it also had its benefits.
Hybrid/Digital Component: 2.1 Collaborative communication – we will be blogging and tweeting our blogs – and also communicating with our classmates through WordPress/Twitter as well as in other ways on Moodle
Course Components:
- Seeing patterns and trends in data and in visual sources such as maps and drawing conclusions from them
- Understanding spatial relationships using different geographic scales
