Romania's Policy

Attempts to manage population: Romania

Who & When 

From 1966 to 1989, Nicolae Ceauşesu, a Romanian communist, gained power & took action when Romania’s population growth was rapidly approaching zero.

Policy

First of all, a pro-natal policy was introduced prohibiting abortions with the exceptions being: if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest, if it endangered the life of the mother, if the women was over 45 or if she had already had and raised four children, which was then raised to five children in 1985. As a an incentive & a way of enforcing this, men and women who were still childless after the age of 25 were taxed up to 20% of their income. Furthermore, restrictions on divorce became much stricter, only allowing them in exceptional cases.

Aims

The aim was to boost population growth by increasing the birth and fertility rates as to ensure there were enough labour suppliers in the future to allow industrialisation to continue. 

Extent of Success

The birth rate before Ceauşesu introduced this policy was 14.3 per 1000 but rapidly increased to 27.4 per 1000 within a year which appeared to be a great success. Additionally the number of divorces plummeted to only 28 a year (down from 26,000) after he rose to power, and the number of legal abortions fell to 52,000 (down from 1 million) within the same time. It terms of reducing the amount of abortions, Ceauşesu was very successful, and this was partly as a result of situating police in hospitals so that illegal abortions were not performed. Overall, the costs on material incentives rose by 470%.

However, there was consequently a rise in infant and maternal mortality rates diminishing the success somewhat. Also once the police stopped monitoring abortions, there was a surge in the amount of legal abortions taking place, and the taxing incentive obviously did'nt appeal strongly enough because the increase in birth rate was only temporary - the rate had fallen back to 14.3 by 1983. The regime was clearly very successful initially but it did'nt last.

In order to try and turn this around in 1984, the legal marriage age for women was lowered to 15, taxes were increased for childless individuals over 25, miscarriages were investigated and the severity of punishment for those participating in illegal abortions was increased resulting in a one year prison sentence for the women involved and up to five years for the doctor. As well as this, women had to attend monthly gynaecological examinations to ensure that all pregnancies were detected as soon as possible and then carried through. This was taken further with childless couples being investigated and treatments being recommended to increase their fertility.  By 1985, the government’s policies hadn’t really achieved much success with a birth rate of 16 per 1000, only slightly higher than it was initially.

Despite being constantly met with failure, Ceauşesu continued with his regime in 1986 through the mass media.  It was propaganda, portraying family life, especially, within large families as something that should be aimed for as well as making suggestions about how it was people’s ‘patriarchal duty’ and ‘moral obligation’. Yet there was a major flaw in these attempts, in that they didn’t take women’s economic situation into consideration and that no material incentive or otherwise was enough to convince them that children would make their life any easier, or that they would be able to support their children.

As can be seen in the population pyramid of 1990, once the regime was over, in contrast to the one of 1965, before the regime began, there has been a minimal increase amongst the youthful population, particularly in the age range of 20-24. It was short-lived success but did prevent population growth ceasing throughout by increasing it by around 4 million people.

 Moral Issues

The main issue is whether it was morally wrong to instruct women on what they could & couldn’t do with their own bodies, essentially ordering them to get pregnant and not allowing them to terminate a pregnancy.

Is it still in operation?

The regime hasn’t been in operation for over 20 years now and although abortion is now legal in Romania, the rate has been gradually decreasing since 1990. However in 2012 there has been a proposal for a legislation change. The Democratic Liberal Party want to introduce a project in which women considering abortions must undergo psychological counselling sessions before doing so to make them fully aware of what they are going to undergo, and to try and convince them otherwise. 

Ways Of Coping With An Aging Population

Providing HOUSING For Older People:

• Retirement complexes of apartments or almshouses eg McCarthy and Stone
• These have voice module/carelines, sockets at hip height, CCTV, provide company/community feel, communal rooms, and easy access

Providing FACILITIES for an Older Population:

• Keeping older people active eg swimming pools
• Sports and recreational activities - entry fees are subsidised - as this reduces medical costs
• Courses eg Tai chi
• Age concern centres - cost £4.7 billion a year

Providing TRANSPORT for an older population:

• Older people often give up driving for medical reasons or the high cost
• Not much public transport in areas they might retire to like Devon compared to somewhere like London
• Ring and Ride schemes take people right to their door - this helps with shopping and other essential activities

The FUTURE of an ageing population:

• Devon Penshioners Action Forum - campaigns for better benefits and pensions
• Policies that lean toward the elderly - policticians try to reach the grey vote

Flood Management Schemes: Realignment/Diversion

Realignment/Diversion

Description:

A river is either diverted through a relief channel or given a straighter route by removing meanders or slower sections of the river.

Advantages:

• Provides alternative route
• Straighter and shorter course
• Steeper gradient
• Aids navigation
• Reduces flood risk
• Habitats may survive
• Allows some control

Disadvantages:

• Totally artificial environment
• Destruction of most river habitats
• May cause greater flood risk downstream

Vital Rates!!!

Birth Rate is the number of births per a 1000 in a year
UK 12       Niger 50      Monaco 7

Death Rate is the number of deaths per 1000 in a year
UK 10        UAE 2       Angola 23

Natural Increase is the number of extra people, and is calculated by: Birth rate-Death Rate
It is usually given as a percentage and doesn't account for migration.

Life Expectancy is the age until which a person, on average, is expected to live.
UK 80        Monaco 90      Angola 39

Infant Mortality Rate is the annual number of deaths in infants under 1 year old per a 1000 live births.
UK 5          Angola 176      Monaco 2

Fertility  is a broad term used to cover all the aspects of a population's reproductive performance.

Population Structure How a population is made up of people of different ages and gender.

Dependency Ratio is a measure showing the ratio of dependents (aged 0-14 and over the age of 65) to the working population.
UK 53.8% Dependent

Overpopulation occurs when the resources and technology of a country are not sufficient to maintain an adequate standard of living for the people of that country. eg Bangladesh

Underpopulation occurs when there are far more resources in an area than the people who live there could possibly use. eg Canada

Optimum Population is a theory that the population of a country when working with all the resources available produces the highest per capita economic return, so giving the highest possible standard of living. eg Norway

Resources  are features that are needed and used by people, consists of human and physical, and renewable/non-renewable.

Gross domestic product per capita is the monetary value of all goods and services produced in a country minus it's total population.
UK $35,000   USA $39,000   Qatar $102,000   Berundi $3000

Migration is entering and settling in a country to which one is not native

Emigration is the movement of a person or persons out of a country or national region for the purposes of permanent relocation of residence

Immigration is the movement of persons from one country or locality to another

The Implications of an Aging Poplation

Positive :)

-As they are retired they have more time to spend volunteering and doing charitable work
-Spending Power, aka The Grey pound
-In 2005 they spent around £250 billion especially on finances and travel
-Boosts the growing private health sector
-Many 'retired' people still do part-time or full-time work, and are useful as they can work flexible hours and don't carry costs like National Insurance, as well as their expertise and knowledge - 25% of B&Q's workforce is over 65
-Pension funds are often invested by fund managers, providing a valuable source of money to many companies

Negative :(

-Have to train more GPs/they need more appointments
-Increase in expensive medical procedures eg heart bypasses
-Greater numbers of retirement/nursing homes needed
-As they are less mobile there will be an increase in services like Dial-a-ride, increasing costs
-Increases in heart disease, cancers and diabetes
-Many elderly people only have a basic state pension, so it is hard for them to afford the increasing prices of food, fuel etc
-As life expectancy rises more people are claiming pensions for longer
-Dependency ratio increasing - In 2000 there were 3.7 people in work for every retired person. By 2040 this will have fallen to 2.1
-Decreasing tax revenue

Soft Engineering!

Soft Engineering is the use of ecological principles to stabilize the river banks, while improving aesthetics, enhancing habitats and saving money. It uses vegetation and other materials to soften the land-water surface.

• Flood Abatement
• Improved flood Predictions and warnings
• Floodplain zoning
• Designing Building that can cope with being flooded

Flood Abatement includes:

          -Afforestation

          -Contour ploughing

          -Riverbank Conservation

  

Floodplain Zoning

 

Improved Forecasting and Warnings

   Frrom the Environmental Agency in the UK.

Designing buildings that can cope with being flooded

- Waterproof coatings and coverings

-Windows elevated above flood level

-Concrete bottom step so it drys quicker

-Lime based plaster or cement walls means that they dry quicker

-Stainless steel kitchen appliances

-Moveable barriers to seal openings like doors

-Raising electricity sockets