POPULATION AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE

Popular views of the world's population problems, in particular the problem of rapid population growth, often neglect the institutional settings in which they are embedded. In the case of high fertility, this setting includes the immediate institutions of social control such as the family and local structures of authority, and more distant institutions of the state. Taking explicit account of this context gives both greater understanding of demographic change (and absence of change) and a better-informed base for the task of influencing it as a matter of public policy. Some analogous institutional considerations arise in the case of the low-fertility regimes of societies that have completed the demographic transition.