| Abstract: | Population development planning is an effort to reconcile numbers with individual, national, and global needs. The emphasis is on the integral linkage that exists between development planning and people's needs, which is best identified through demographic characteristics. Population development planning should focus on the 40% of those living below the poverty level and the 50% at the subsistence level. Limiting a country's population, or family planning, is not an end in itself; it should be complemented by long-term development. Planners and programmers in education, rural development, trade, social welfare; health, labor, agriculture, or local government should ensure a consonance between the people's aspirations and the nation's needs. Family planning must be joined with efforts to change standards of living. Individual behavior is affected by intermediary areas of association and authority, the extended family, the neighborhoods, and the local community. Government programs will fail if they do not consider the grass-roots, individual, and community needs. |
