Determinants of population development in planning for South Africa

Abstract

Population development planning has continued to be a battle for both developed and developing countries, as such it has been used as an exploitative tool and a political instrument to manipulate societies. China has offered a perfect example with its one-child policy. Although china’s one-child policy has been in use for over 35 years, and this approach was to control the fertility rate under the notion of planned and facilitated economic growth. The temporary brake measure saw its epic fail in the current 21st century; this resulted in the loosening and relaxed approach of the two-child policy as a measure towards population development planning. The relaxed policy and the Chinese withdrawal from controlling the reproductive systems of communities came soon after the realisation of the current underdevelopment within the country. The support from political allies and the rushed policy implementation was likely fuelled by the lack of understanding in terms of population development and planning. To solicit the incision of the study, qualitative data analysis, thick descriptions and classifications were utilised. Thick descriptions involved the expressions of meaning, contexts and, where relevant, intentions relating to conceptions, approaches and determinants of population development were planned. Contexts included the geographic, cultural, policy, historical, demographical, legislative, social, economic, political, and environmental and so on for Southern Africa and its states. Planning is value-laden; therefore, intentions relating to the adoption of family planning policies and their confusion with population development planning in Southern Africa will be discussed. For quantitative data, PCA was used to analyse the data into a variety of summary statistics. Irrespective of varied reasons presented as the culprit of ineffective population development in planning, this study argues that determinants of population development should be primate to attendant planning in Southern Africa.