sub-Saharan Africa. Mamdani (2001:ch 6,7) notes that one of the factors underlying the Rwanda genocide was local resentment of heavy in-migration of people seeking richer land.

# **3. How do the poorest countries gain from fertility reduction?**

Fertility remains high in parts of the developing world, typically in the poorest countries. The least developed countries have an estimated average of 4.2 children per woman in 2010-15 (UN 2013, medium variant). The estimate for Sub-Saharan Africa is 5.1 children per woman in 201015, and its population is projected to rise from 0.64 to 3.82 billion between 2000 and 2100 (UN 2013, medium variant). Total Fertility Rates also remain high in a scattering of other developing countries. They remain above 3 children per woman in some larger Asian countries, such as the Philippines and Pakistan (UN 2013), and some of the least developed states of Northern India (Haub 2011:Figure 11).

Reducing fertility can benefit these countries in many ways, facilitating economic growth and poverty reduction. A large literature since the 1990s discusses the “demographic dividend” enabled when fertility declines in high fertility settings. The resultant low dependency ratios create a window of opportunity for savings, increased productivity, and investment (Higgins and Williamson 1997; Kelley and Schmidt 1996, 2005). Some of this dividend is automatic, arising simply from increasing the resources per capita for services, infrastructure, and livelihoods. However, with good policy management and investment in physical and human capital, this window of opportunity can be used to transform economies such that their growth potential remains high after the window has closed. This is evidenced especially in East Asia (Bloom and Williamson 1998, Lee 2009). The more rapid the fertility decline in a region, the wider the window of opportunity, though its duration will be shorter because the population will age more rapidly.<sup>7</sup> This literature on the “demographic dividend” is sometimes interpreted as implying that fertility decline is "wasted" without strong policy settings such as those in East Asia. Yet these studies came decades after vigorous family planning programs were started in most Asian countries in the 1960s and 1970s. These were explicitly motivated by widespread poverty compounded by sharply rising population growth rates, and were viewed as an integral part of the countries’ development strategy.<sup>8</sup> Reducing fertility itself helps reduce poverty, as evidenced in India where it mitigates some of the negative fallout of its weak economic policies and slow job growth.

Micro-studies also find that lower fertility helps reduce poverty at household level in developing countries. It has been found to be associated with better child health and schooling (Rosenzweig and Wolpin 1980; Rosenzweig and Zhang 2009), improved maternal health, increased women’s labor force participation, and higher household earnings (Joshi and Schultz 2007). Young women benefited especially from access to the family planning program in Colombia, obtaining more schooling and being more likely to work in the formal sector (Miller 2010). Miller (2010:711) concluded that family planning may be ‘among the most effective (and cost-effective) interventions to foster human capital accumulation’.<sup>9</sup> These benefits are especially critical given the shortage of land and jobs in these countries, which leaves their growing populations ever more squeezed for livelihoods. Land 7