How Does Congress Approach Population and Family Planning Issues?: Results of Qualitative Interviews with Legislative Directors

Book Description
Congressional opinions on issues related to population are highly polarized. Approximately 90 percent of Congress consistently votes either uniformly to support or uniformly to oppose population-related legislation--so the remaining 10 percent is likely to determine the fate of such initiatives. To determine how this critical group makes its decisions, researchers interviewed a sample of legislative directors (chosen as proxies, to allow in-depth interviews). Most respondents felt that the United States should continue to play a leading role internationally, but several also stressed that their members of Congress favor increased emphasis on multilateral approaches. A majority felt that world population growth is a problem but is not urgent. Nearly unanimous support was expressed for U.S. support of voluntary family planning when it is understood to exclude abortion. Congress would benefit from research-based, factual information on a variety of international population issues.


From the Publisher
This report presents the results of qualitative interviews with legislativedirectors for members of the U.S. Congress on population-relatedissues. The interviews were conducted in July and August of1997. The purpose was to deepen understanding of how legislatorsview these issues, what their information needs on the subject are,and how information usually reaches them. The interviews exploredattitudes and knowledge about issues related to population, such asforeign relations, family planning, the environment, and immigration.The interviews were conducted for RAND's Population Matters project.The primary focus of this project is synthesizing and communicatingthe findings and implications of existing demographic research in ways that policy audiences and other interested groups will find accessible. The project grew out of the belief, held by many in both research and policy circles, that the results of demographic research are relatively inaccessible to policy audiences and therefore have less impact than they otherwise might. One of the project's challenges is to identify key policy audiences, understand how research-based demographic information might be useful to them, and devise strategies for communicating it to them effectively. Oneof these key audiences is the U.S. Congress. Therefore, to help usbetter understand which areas of demographic research to focus onand how best to convey the findings to Congress, we decided to surveycongressional audiences to get a sense of their knowledge andattitudes about population issues.These interviews helped to shape the project's first major report (TheValue of Family Planning in Developing Countries, by Rodolfo A.Bulatao) and a related Issue Paper ("Family Planning in DevelopingCountries: An Unfinished Success Story," by Julie DaVanzo andDavid M. Adamson).This document should be of interest to anyone concerned with congressional knowledge of and views on population-related issues.This research was conducted within RAND's Labor and PopulationProgram. The work was supported by grants from the William andFlora Hewlett Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and theUnited Nations Population Fund.For further information on the Population Matters project, contact:Julie DaVanzo, Director, Population MattersRANDP.O Box 21381700 Main St.Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138Julie_DaVanzo@rand.


About the Author
David M. Adamson is a communications analyst at RAND.


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Congressional opinions on issues related to population are highly polarized. Approximately 90 percent of Congress consistently votes either uniformly to support or uniformly to oppose population-related legislation—so the remaining 10 percent is likely to determine the fate of such initiatives. To determine how this critical group makes its decisions, researchers interviewed a sample of legislative directors (chosen as proxies, to allow in-depth interviews). Most respondents felt that the United States should continue to play a leading role internationally, but several also stressed that their members of Congress favor increased emphasis on multilateral approaches. A majority felt that world population growth is a problem but is not urgent. Nearly unanimous support was expressed for U.S. support of voluntary family planning when it is understood to exclude abortion. Congress would benefit from research-based, factual information on a variety of international population issues.


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