A Family Planing Programme

Because of recent development in medicine, many diseases from which people used to die can now be cured. This has brought a decrease in mortality rate. And babies who once might have died at birth or shortly after, now live. As result, the world's population has been growing rapidly.

The rapid population growth now taking place is sometimes called population explosion. Many persons fear and doubt that population will grow faster than the resources - such as food, fuel, and housing - needed to support all the people. If this should happen, the first result would be lower standards of living.

In Indonesia, as well as other densely populated countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, there have been attempts to help people plan smaller families. The government in those countries are working hard to make sure that the children of poor parents will have the chance of a different and better way of life themselves. The government have begun then family planning programme. In these programmes people are urged to limit the number of their children.

Birth control is widely practised today. The population explosion, the greatly reduced infant mortality, the growing participation of women in profitable occupations and social and political activities, and threat of famine in overpopulated areas, have all made birth control virtually a universally accepted practice.