With rapid growth identified as the most pressing of global population problems, the sceneshifts immediately to villages in rural Kenya or urban slums in Karaas or bedrooms in Sedale wherecouples are making decisions about their reproductive behavior. Unlike other global issues which canbe shaped directly by the actions of national and international power brokers, resolution of theproblems posed by the magnitude and pace of contemporary population growth in the worldultimately depends upon the actions and behavior of a very large number of individual actors. Rapidpopulation growth is the direct result of regular decisions made in private by literally many millionsof persons throughout the world.
Hence, we are all actors in the population drama. Each of us has the potential to aggravate theproblem of rapid growth just as each of us can change the distribution of populations simply bymoving. Population trends therefore represent nothing more than the combined decisions of manyindividuals, couples, and families. And, because these decisions are shaped and conditioned bycommonly held values, goals, and aspirations, there are patterns to them and the actors appear tofollow the broad outlines of a script.
It is then evident that efforts to decrease the rate of population growth must eventually influencethe decisions and behavior of many millions of couples if they are to be successful. Values andattitudes——the script that guides this behavior——-must be altered. To he even more specific, it meansthat couples, overwhelmingly poor and predominantly rural, in Africa, Asia, and Latin Americawhere population growth is so high, must choose to limit the number of their children to fewer thanthree and must have the means to accomplish their goal. Similarly, couples in Europe, NorthAmerica, and other low-fertility regions must continue to maintain their present patterns of havingsmall families. Each couple must stick to its decision for some twenty'to thirty years, or t
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