Population Problems and Catholic Responsibility: Proceedings of the International symposium on population problems in developing countries and worldwide Catholic responsibility(2 Tilburg Studies on Development Research)

Since the time of Malthus, population has been a favourite subject for debate, but it is only during the past few decades that the full implications have begun to be generally understood among policy-makers. This change in attitude, which still has a long way to go, has apparently been preci- pitated, on one hand, by the development efforts of the Third World countries over the past two decades, and on the other, by the stark reality of the unprecedented high rates of population growth recorded in many developing countries over the same period. This population expansion, while it has been compared to earlier population growth in Europe, is of a vastly different nature, and has quite different implications. At the heigh of population growth in the Western European countries, the rate of increase was well below 2 % per annum and much closer to 1.5 %. 2 This is in vivid contrast to the situation in the less developed countries today where population growth rates tend to range from over 2% to 3.5% or even more. A major implication of this population expansion is its effects on development efforts.

Table of Contents:
I. Introduction.- II. Opening Addresses.- 1. Development and environment aims an intuitive view.- 2. Statement of Jydi S. Singh.- III. General Overview of Asia.- 3. Human aspects of population problem in east and southeast Asia.- 4. The population problem in Indonesia: controlling its growth through family planning and community health care development and an additional pastoral clarification.- 5. The Asian population problem and Catholic responsibility.- 6. An integrated approach to India’s population problem.- IV. General Overview Africa.- 7. Facts and problems of the African population.- 8. The population problem and social responsibility in less developed countries.- 9. Changing attitudes in favour of family planning, Phebean Whest-Allegre.- V. General Overview Latin-America.- 10. Population programmes in Latin America.- 11. Some aspects of the Latin-American populationproblems and Brazilian case.- 12. Family planning in Brazil.- 13. Mexico: toward a new population problem?.- VI. Theological Reflections.- 14. The catholic church and the population problem.- 15. Some theological reflections about the population problem.- 16. Protestant aggiornamento on population-parenthood problems.- VII. The Report of the Meeting.