A Population Policy Rationale for the Twenty-First Century

I propose that the primary goal of twenty-first-century population policies should be to strengthen the human resource base for national and global sustainable development. I discuss the shortcomings of the three dominant twentieth-century population policy rationales: acceptance of replacement-level fertility as a demographic goal; realizing a demographic dividend from the changing age structure; and filling the unmet need for family planning. I demonstrate that in all three cases the explicit incorporation of education into the model changes the picture and makes female education a key population policy priority. Population policies under this new rationale could be viewed as public human resource management. I argue that 20 years after the Cairo ICPD the international community needs a new rationale for population policies in the context of sustainable development and that a focus on human capital development, in particular education and health, is the most promising approach.