Chapter 5 demonstrates how, in the 1950s and 1960s, U.S.-based philanthropic organizations invested in the growth of demography, the social science of human population dynamics, and used demography to convince heads of state of developing countries to integrate family planning programs into their nation-building and economic development agendas. The Population Council and the Ford Foundation established population research and training centers at major U.S. universities, to which they recruited graduate students from developing countries, with the understanding that they would return home after completing their education to advocate for the establishment of family planning programs. These organizations also funded fertility surveys by American demographers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that promoted small-family norms and the distribution of new systemic contraceptive technologies, specifically the intrauterine device and birth control pill, and documented the existence of what demographers termed “unmet need” for family planning services.
Reexamining the Impact of Family Planning Programs on U.S. Fertility: Evidence from the War on Poverty and the Early Years of Title X
