POPULATION POLICY 21 factors which affect the overall status of women within the family and community. The Working Group on National Population Policy (1977-78) recommended that the new strategies that needed to be added to the existing population measures was the improvement in the status of women. This was also stressed by the Working Group on the Employment of Women (1978). The suggestions of these working groups were included in the Draft Sixth Five Year Plan which stated that *No worthwhile population policy can succeed if it does not focus on changes in the economic conditions and social status of women'5. Before the plan could be implemented, the government changed. In the new Plan, the issues of repeated pregnancies and women's lack of education and economic independence were acknowledged as obstacles for women's development and family planning was projected as an essential strategy for women's development. The population policy envisaged by the Sixth Five Year Plan sought to reduce the reproduction rate to unity by 1996 for the country as a whole and in all the states by the year 2001. This was possible only by reducing the birth rateto21 per thousand of population from 3 3 in 1978, and the death rate to 9 from 14.2. The proportion of couples protected by contraception services was to be raised to about 60 per cent. It was also intended to reduce infant mortality from 129 to 60 or less.6 An Expert Committee on Population Projections had predicted that the proportion of women in the reproductive age group 15-44 in the total female population would show continuious rise with reduction in female mortality as indicated in the table given below. Table I Women in th (1980-W e Reproductive Age Group )6) (As on First March) Year Total Female Population Women in the age group 15-44 % of reproductive age group to total 1980 1981 1985 318.22 (E) 321.36 (A) 349.05 142.38 139.47 162.09 44.74 43.40 46.44 1990 380.20 182.34 47.96 1996 418.33 205.78 49.19 E-Estimate A-Actual SOURCE : Sixth Five Year Plan, 1980-85 Government of India The implication of this demographic profile is that the birth rate is likely to show rising trends even if the age specific fertility rate remains static. An effective strategy for fertility control was therefore considered necessary if the long-term population goal is to be achieved. The Plan called for a national consensus on the importance of the family planning programme in the context of the growing pressures on the country's economic well being. Social pressures were to be built up against early marriages and large size families. Women's organisations were identified as having an important role to play in this context