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- Title
'In einem gewissen Sinne politisch belastet'. Bevölkerungswissenschaft und Bevölkerungspolitik zwischen Entwicklungshilfe und bundesrepublikanischer Sozialpolitik (1960er und 1970er Jahre).
- Authors
Hartmann, Heinrich A.
- Abstract
After the Second World War, Germany's national socialist past compromised population policy and West German policy makers were reluctant to integrate demography into new approaches towards public welfare. However, this break was not as absolute as it looked. Starting in the early 1950s, demographic expertise started again to play a certain, albeit limited role in West German social policies, above all in the field of family politics. But it was not before the 1960s that the fields underwent a real new boost, which was not primarily the result of social politics in Germany but of new development activities outside Germany, through the global threat of the population explosion. Here, I argue that these questions experienced an ever-growing attention in the 1960s and that the Federal German government used it to reconstruct their approaches towards overseas development. On the one hand, the field allowed demographic experts to find a new career. On the other hand, it pushed for a new political discourse and institution building in the field of demographics. Paradoxically, this strengthened the position of 'population' as an element of welfare politics and influenced debates over the legalization of abortion as well as the establishment of a German institute of population studies. In spite of radical opposition to the threats of global overpopulation and German population decline, both elements had an important share in reintegrating population into the catalogue of West German welfare policy.
- Subjects
GERMANY (West); POPULATION policy; PUBLIC welfare; DEMOGRAPHY -- Social aspects; OVERPOPULATION; ABORTION; HISTORY; SOCIAL policy
- Publication
Historische Zeitschrift, 2016, Vol 303, Issue 1, p98
- ISSN
0018-2613
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1515/hzhz-2016-0288