Prospects for Practical Population Programs

Abstract

A look toward future implications of population growth and the possibilities of practical programs to ameliorate unfavorable interactions with quality of life seem to be an appropriate way to close this review of the state of the world's population. More than virtually any other discipline demography has become the modern gloomy science with doomsday predictions, rising steadily in a crescendo of concern based on the conflicting predictions of population experts. The optimistic note that emerges from the present worldwide concern is that enough international awareness has been stimulated so that concerted and realistic action is now possible. The fact that the organizers of the 1974 World Population Year are trying to get international concurrence on a “World Population Plan of Action” carries the hope that planning may make programs more realistic and effective.