Mongolia pronatalist population policy lessons and questions

Abstract

In her population policy, 1996, Mongolian stated the intention to maintain her annual population growth rate at no less than 1.8 percent. This came in the background of a declining growth rate in the 1990’s, which actually dropped to 1.4 percent according to the 2000 population census. The achievement of the objectives of such a pro-natalist policy is fraught with many problems and challenges both in design as well as implementation. Many countries in the world have in the last century experimented with pro-natalist policies without much success. This scenario raises many questions and issues that need to be addressed by countries either embarking or already implementing such population policies. Some countries have limited their success as a result of weaknesses in the design and development of the policy itself. Often inadequate preparations are made before the pronouncement of the policy. There are in some cases inadequate demographic and policy studies conducted before the policy is formulated, insufficient consensus among politicians, policy bureaucrats and the public, weak infrastructure as well as poor advocacy of such policies by governments as well as lack of a clear set of policy measures that will yield the best results. This paper seeks to ask some of these questions in the context of Mongolia without necessarily offering solutions. The hope is that the policy makers and others will be wary of them as they embark on further development and implementation of the policy in the future. The paper examines the rationale for pro-natalist policies and in a very brief way, the performance of pro-natalist policies in Nazi Germany and France.