Kerala, still a poor province, differs from the rest of India in a number of ways. Its life expectancy is 10 years longer than the rest of India(73 years as opposed to 63 years), the infant mortality rate is much lower than in the rest of India, literacy is almost universal(97%)and women are as educated as men and have important positions in local politics. By comparison, in 1990, the male and female literacy rates for India were 62% and 34%.Kerala has been politically dominated by Communists. Kerala does not reject birth control as a strategy for leveling off the population. They had a success of birth control. There is a place that attempts to use rational planning to gradually eliminate the poverty, illiteracy, short life expectancy and general insecurity that drives the local people to have large numbers of children. As a result, Kerala has managed to build a network of schools, health clinics, public housing and other services that eliminate the extreme poverty. The Kerala government has concentrated its resources on primary and secondary education, health care and on family planning services.
China operates the world’s most severe and controversial family planning programme. In 1959 the population had grown to 655 million. The “Great Leap Forward” was started in 1958 to try and extend the socialist system of production. They aimed to hand control industrialization in rural places and set high targets for agriculture. This ended with disorganized production and famine, causing the population to drop by 14 million between 1959 and 1962. Infant mortality reached around 284 per 1000, compared to 38 per 1000 in the late 1990’s.
The one-child policy was established to limit China's population growth. It limits couples to one child. Fines, pressures to abort a pregnancy, and even forced sterilization accompanied second or subsequent pregnancies. Since the introduction of the one-child policy in 1979, there has been no large drop in fertility and in fact China experienced a slight increase fluctuating around 21 births per 1,000 people in the 1980s. It is connected with fact that women have no say in determining the size of the family and boys are more wanted due to an investment as they provide old-age security for their parents.
On the other hand, Kerala has been successful in raising female literacy. It happened because of mass education, high proportion of Christian where women are likely to get married later and care about their carrier and also high population density.
Next example of population policy is Nigeria, a country that at the beginning introduced pro-natalist population policy because of lots of migration from China, Malaysia and India. Later, they introduced anti-natalist policy. It caused really low TFR(1.7), which is considered to be below replacement rate. It is the fastest growing population in the world. In this country number of people is really increasing and it is predicted that by 2050 population will reached 338,5 million. It would not be so bad but if we say about Nigeria, a country with very bad standard of living, it can caused problems. In Nigeria, only 60 per cent of households have access to improved drinking water sources, while access to satisfactory sanitation facilities is small. The poor condition with respect to water and sanitation contributes to high morbidity and mortality among children. There are still many health problems in rural areas due to polluted drinking water and a shortage of water for daily hygiene. Approximately 80% of households have less than 30 litres of water per person per day. Water-related diseases suffered by villagers include the deadly malaria virus. Nigeria has also enormous wealth in resources, especially oil and gas, but 70% of the population lives on less than US$1 a day. In Nigeria millions of children are living and working in the street. About 45% of the Nigerian population is below the poverty line and for most of them it is very hard to find adequate housing. When they introduced population policy it was not so successful because it was volontary and their level of life did not change so they do not have to admonish it. Besides, half of population are Muslim and their religion encourages them to have as many children as they can.
There are three three main reasons why they were not successful. Firstly, only about 6% of married women currently use a method of contraception. Secondly, high TFR is a result of early age of marriage and childbearing. Thirdly, their tradition and culture encourages them to have many children.
In Kerala fertility declines not only at the same time as knowledge about contraceptives was spreading faster but also it raised female literacy. Kerala is a Christian country in contrast of Nigeria.
The population policies of China and India, in particular of Kerala state, show very different approaches to the need to limit rapid population growth.
The position of women in Kerala provides a model which should be copied elsewhere. They enjoyed economic freedom and independence. Kerala police has a reputation. Other countries cannot reproduce the historical experience of Kerala’s attitude to women.
David Waugh ;Geography: An Integrated Approach,4th edition
Garrett Nagle, Briony Cooke; Geography for the IB diploma, IB study guides
