The demographic transition in the Sahel region has been slower than that in the rest of the world. Although child mortality rates have declined in recent decades, they are still higher in West Africa than in other regions. Furthermore, the fertility decline has progressed very slowly, with some...

Population policies are defined here as voluntary programs which help people control their fertility and expect to improve their lives. There are few studies of the long-run effects of policy-induced changes in fertility on the welfare of women, such as policies that subsidize the diffusion and...

This book evaluates the evidence on the impacts of population growth on well-being in developing countries and concludes that slowing population growth from high current levels, especially in poor, agrarian societies facing pressure on land and resources, is advantageous to economic development,...