Population Strategies Group
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Updated Nov 26, 2008
opulation, family planning, fertility,
population policy, population control,
See the World Population Data
Sheet (Population Reference Bureau)
2008 World Population Data
Sheet
Population Topics
Book Reviews
(coming)
Guttmacher Report: Unintended Pregnancies in the US
Approximately one in eleven women of childbearing age in the U.S. get pregnant every year. About one-half (49 percent) of these pregnancies are "unintended", and about 1/2 of the unintended pregnancies end in abortion.
However, the rate differed dramatically among population subgroups. For example, the rate among women whose income was below the federal poverty line was three times that of women whose income was at least double the poverty line. These inequalities were manifested in rates of both abortion and unintended births. Such gaps have social justice implications, because they indicate that some groups of women have more difficulty than others in achieving their reproductive goals. Assessing these disparities may help policymakers and public health professionals identify these groups of women.
Moreover, there is reason to believe that the rate of unintended pregnancy may have increased since 1994, for the U.S. population as a whole or for specific subgroups. This is attributable to the actions of government in reducing access to Family Planning, particularly for lower income groups.
See report:
Disparities in
Rates of Unintended Pregnancies
Lester Brown on Population and conflict
Population growth can lead to political conflict not only between societies but also within them. Some insights into this were offered in an engaging World Watch magazine article by James Gasana, who was Minister of Agriculture and Environment in Rwanda in 1990-92 and then Minister of Defense in 1992-93. As the chair of a national agricultural commission in 1990, he had warned that without "profound transformations in its agriculture, [Rwanda] will not be capable of feeding adequately its population under the present growth rate. from Lester R. Brown, Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble (W.W. Norton & Co., NY: 2003)