Demographic transition in a Punjab village
Nag, M.; Kak, N.
Population and Development Review 10(4): 661-678
1984
ISSN/ISBN: 0098-7921 DOI: 10.2307/1973286Document Number: 408560
Manupur, one of the more than half million villages of India, has acquired a special place in the field of population. Mahmood Mamdani's 1972 book The myth of population control, based on a microdemographic study of this village in the early 1970s, has had a strong influence on thinking about population policy in India and internationally. It expressed forcefully the view that family planning programmes are of little use to the villagers of developing countries. Using data collected in 1982 from the same village, this paper shows that the family planning attitudes and behaviour of villagers are now significantly different from those documented by Mamdani, and seeks to relate these differences to socioeconomic changes that have occurred in the village. The use of modern contraceptives increased considerably in Manupur between the two surveys. The contraceptive prevalence rate in the village in 1982 was 50%, compared with 33% throughout Punjab and 26% throughout India in the same year. The data collected during the later investigation coupled with a study of the socioeconomic history of Manupur and Punjab, as documented by Mamdani and others, led to the conjecture that the following three interrelated aspects of development have played crucial roles in the decline in the economic value of children: (1) the introduction of modern agricultural technology, (2) institutional innovations, and (3) expansion of formal education, particularly among girls.