Population (2)
Europe and family planning
Francis Wintle
Let us make no mistake about it: Europe as a continent is rich, and its population is only expanding slowly compared with much of the rest of the world. Many of Europe's countries, England above all, are densely populated, but their average population growth is still under 1 per cent a year and the UK figure is around per cent. Those who talk of some imminent crisis are overstating the case. It would probably be fairer to say that we-should aim to bring the growth rate down further and that it is not beyond us to do so.
To take the main facts of the case first: Europe has seen a considerable population expansion since the war. It started of course with the recouping process of the ' bulge ' which occurred almost everywhere on the continent except Germany. Then there was a period of relative stability up to the mid'fifties with an average of about 2.7 births per woman; and this in turn was followed by an increase until the mid-'sixties, especially in England and Wales, before a lower rate set in. The results of the marriages of those children of the ' bulge ' admittedly have yet to come.
Looking across recent figures for Europe we find a slightly more varied picture. France, for instance, with a population a little smaller than ours has a growth rate of 0.9 per cent; Germany (Federal) with a fairly densely situated 59 to 60 million, has a solid 1 per cent growth rate; Italy, whose popu lation is a little larger than ours but whose area is greater, has a 0.8 per cent rate. The Iron Curtain countries on the other band have lower growth rates than these, although many of them are higher than our own per cent. At opposite ends of the scale we have Finland who, by the time she has allowed for emigration, barely replaces her citizens, and Turkey who alone has the distinction (besides a sad poverty) of a runaway 2.5 per cent growth rate that is almost up to Latin American standards.
It is also worth taking note of the economic growth rate per head in passing. In terms of actual wealth per head of the pcpulation, expressed as GNP per capita, there is a sharp differentiation between almost all Iron Curtain countries and the EEC countries. (There are also of course the examples of other poor countries such as Portugal and Turkey, and to a lesser extent Spain.) On the other hand the GNP per capita growth rate tells a slightly different story. Here the Iron Curtain countries tend to be doing better, catching up, if yoU tike — while the UK appears quite strikingly at the bottom of the list with 2.2 per cent whereas Germany and France for instance have figures of 3.5 per cent and 4.6 per cent respectively.
And what does all this show? Firstly that the less highly developed countries of Europe are succeeding in keeping their population growth fairly well down and managing to do a little better economically for each individual, while the better off countries are managing nearly as well, With the exception, on the economit , front, of Britain. It .is a situation which at first sight should get an approving nod from the exponents of -tvorld population control for prosperity.
Certainly at first sight one would agree with them. When one looks at the Family Planning services provided on the Continent one is struck bY how thOrough and general these services are, backed by, if not actually under the direct control of, individual governments.
With such obvious exceptiona as the Irish Republic and tO some extent Greete, European countries have at least sortie general family planning facilities, and many Eastern European countries have tended to have more liberal abortion laws, allowing abortion on sociomedical grounds as does our own Abortion Law. In France, by contrast, abortion is more restricted, and in Belgium it is illegal. As further evidence of the shift towards a more liberal attitude, most readers will probably remember how, amidst some heated public debate, Italy in March, 1971, repealed her anti-contraception laws. And though it is a little early to say exactly what effect Humanae Vitae is having, and despite the fact that there has been evidence of a rather different attitude to family planning on the part of some Roman Catholic GPs, it is not easy to see that the religious aspect of this problem has made any very substantial difference to overall population growth in Europe.
So is it family planning, deliberate family planning in the full knowledge that Europe cannot support more than a limited number of people, that is the cause of this relatively satisfactory situation? The answer appears to be no. For a start there are some instances of the reverse policy, namely of trying to encourage people to breed more rather than less. France, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria may all be cited as countries where this has happened. A decree in 1966 limited abortion in Romania for this reason; Bulgaria limited abortion and put family allow ances up. One of the many inter esting points that came out of the UN report, Family planning and Social Policy in Europe, in 1971 was that where there have been restrictions on con traceptive advertisements and the like, it has sometimes followed a population decline. It is simply not true it appears, even in Europe, that Family Planning necessarily means a drop in fertility.
Social security systems and welfare services, education and housing, even what people tend to forget — the family itself, the existence of .granc parents to look after and the like — all these things have their effect on what size of family parents try to have. Moreover, there is another pattern emerging, a social pattern which could have considerable political significance for the future.
Whatever attempts are made to help the lower paid, the standard of living of working class families declines with increased family size. This is something to be borne in mind very carefully by those who advocate controlling population by the threatened removal of family allowances. Perhaps even more significant, there is evidence that in many parts of Europe, the artisan and small shopkeeper class is barly replacing itself, while the professional class has a fairly steady and controlled birth rate. The largest single factor, especially evident in Eastern Europe, has been the inclusion of more women in the working population, though here there is also evidence that higher degrees of education have also tended to lower women's fertility.
The picture then? It seems to be that Europe is well organised for family planning, that it has like most of the developed world a moderate rate of growth, but that we should do well to remember that family planning has tended to be a means only, where the causes of family limitation lie in the structure of the society itself.
And the message? I suggest that it may be that family limitation arises out of welfare, and not the other way round. The above is the second of three articles on population problems (in the World, in Europe and in Britain) by Francis Wintle who is a former Officer in the Conservative Research Department, looking after Health and Social Security Affairs. He recently resigned to join the Liberal Party.
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