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Abstract:
During the past 25 years, the world's population increased by 60 percent to 4 billion people. The period witnessed a momentous decline in mortality, which will probably continue in the developed countries. Fertility has fallen dramatically in the developed countries to quite low levels. In the developing countries, where the bulk of the world's population is concentrated, fertility is still high, although it has begun to decline in some countries. Reductions in fertility have been dramatic in Asia and the Pacific; substantial in Central and South America; and hardly noticeable in Africa. Increasingly, population policies will be considered as an integral part of social and economic development; and family planning will receive increasing attention as a human right, as an element of improved maternal and child health, and also as a means of moderating high rates of population growth.