The impact of rural development on population growth.

This report reviews 7 papers on population growth and rural development. These papers the result of a project initiated by the Southeast Consortium for International Development are in themselves reviews of the current status of research on different socioeconomic factors of rural development and their potential effects on fertility levels. The developmental factors considered by these papers include the status of women; human migration; education; the cost and value of children; land availability; income and wealth; and health and nutrition. These aspects of the general problem of determining and predicting the impact of rural development on population growth are elements of a model system designed to elucidate the process by which policies and expenditures on rural development work their way through institutional and individual behavior to produce changes in fertility. Although research has indicated some relationship between each of the variables considered and fertility in most cases this relationship has not yet been quantitated in a manner capable of demonstrating how much fertility change might result from their manipulation through rural development processes. In addition because the existing literature on these variables has not focused sufficiently on specific country settings it is deficient as a guide to the formation of policy. An information bit system for the literature is proposed as a means of extracting more quantitative information.