Assignment # 3

Topic: Population Control

Due in the Tutorial of Week of June 14, 2010

Value: 4 points

Grading criteria: 3 points for content including style or argument and 1 point for syntax and grammar.

Thesis:

"The control of China's population (or India's) is crucial to their development, the world environment and world peace and tranquility. Hence, these countries have an ethical imperative to control their populations and can use any means that they deem ethical. Thus, bribed sterilization (male or female), monetary incentives to control family size, penalties for more than one child, voucher systems to buy and sell rights for a second child and in the limit, forced abortions, are legitimate policy options."

In this next short paper (700-800 words), you are to make a case FOR or AGAINST the adoption of one or two of these policies as means of population control in your own country.

A. To make a case for a new policy, you will need to do the following:

identify and describe the status of population growth and demographics in your country
explain how these conditions conform to a theory and why they require a new policy
suggest one or two policies you think would be effective
explain why these policies would be effective in the particular cultural, social and economic setting of your country.

B. To make a case against adopting a new policy, you will need to do the following:

identify and describe the status of population growth and demographics in your country
identify one or two policies which your political opponents have suggested
explain why these policies would not be effective in the particular cultural, social and economic setting of your country and why the theory they are assumed to conform to does not apply in this particular case.

You might start your paper by saying….

Over the past (give a number) of years or decades, the population of (your country) has grown from….

Although you are not writing a formal essay nor a full analysis, you are making an argument or a case for your position. You need to give reasons and evidence that you explain. Do not assume that the person who looks at your statistics will have the same interpretation as you do. Make sure that you explain the significance of any numbers you cite, and say why they matter or tell us how to understand them and interpret them.

e.g. The Population Reference Bureau indicates that Malawi’s population growth rate is 4.05% per annum and that 43% of the population is under 15. What this means is that there is enormous pressure on parents, schools, the government and the health system. Parents have responsibility for…etc.