Family And Population Control: a puerto Rican experiment in social change

Population explosion" is an important social phenomenon of today which threatens the development of many modernizing countries. This volume describes an integrated research program for understanding and controlling the fertility aspects of population growth. It links population theory. family sociology, and social psychology in showing the meaning. for families, of population trends: it joins survey method with experiment in using a field experiment based on a sample survey: and it combines theory and practice by spelling out the implications of theoretical findings for public policy.
Puerto Rico lends itself well to the study of the dynamics of changes in fertility patterns. Facile explanations for Puerto Rico's high birth rate, such as the desire for large families, religion, ignorance of contraceptive or un availability of materials are shown to be inapplicable-yet the birth rate is declining at only a very slow rate and remains higher than that of many countries. In such a situa tion the conditions of incipient decline of fertility can be studied.
The focus of this study is the treatment of population control as a phenomenon of family planning and action. The key to the under standing of fertility is seen to lie in the decisions of husbands and wives and the methods by which they recognize and solve their problems. Of such successes and failures is the fertility rate made up.
Family conditions and their social effects on population conditions are investigated by a variety of methods. A consideration of general social and cultural characteristics of Puerto Rico serves as a backdrop for the description of the problem in a survey of nearly nine hundred childbearing families. The results of the survey permit further exploration into the real meaning of apparently favorable conditions for fertility control in the face of poor achievements in family limitation.. From this exploration a multivariate model of conditions for family planning is constructed which includes both the general values system and the organizational features of effective family functioning. A field experiment tests the model in an educational program aimed to stimulate family planning. The last section of this study re turns to the implications of the findings for the larger society and proposes a program through which Puerto Rico can control its population problem.
In 1956 a preliminary release of survey findings from this research won the Helen L. DeRoy Award of the Society for the Study of Social Problems for the best re search of the year on a social problem.