Cold hard cash may be the most powerful incentive yet for couples in India to wait before procreating. With a population of 1.2 billion people—half of which are under the age of 25—the country is desperate to slow down its population growth and some districts are offering a reward to those couples helping the cause. In places like rural Satara, local health officials go door-to-door hawking a “honeymoon package” of cash bonuses (roughly $106) and encouraging the use of contraceptives. “This is how population stabilization will come,” said one administrator. It is certainly a more palatable, and popular, approach than India’s experiment in the 1970s when the government caused an uproar with forced vasectomies or China’s take on population control.
CHEAT SHEET
TOP 10 RIGHT NOW
- 1
- 2
- 4
- 5
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10