POPULATION POLICY 27 improve their access to development resources and strengthen their decision-making status within the family and community. Schemes of disincentives run counter to the constitutional guarantees of fundamental rights and the national policies on children's and women's rights. They also ignore the political lessons of 1977 and the social analysis that clearly states that reproductive decisions are often not taken by individuals or couples but are heavily influenced by group pressures25. Data for thts paper collected a Centre For Women's Development Project on Women* s Dedace. 1 World population Plan of Action, UN World Population Conference, Bucharest, 1974. 2 Ashok Mitra '.Population in India's Development edited by Ashish Bose. Ashok Mitra, PB Desai, JN Sharma, pp 4-7, Vikas, 1974. See also Vina Mazumdar : Fertility Policy in India in Blumen Lipman, Bernard J (ed) Sex Roles and Social Policy, Sage Publications, London, 1979. v 3 Report of the Working Group on National Population Policy, 1977-78, Government of India, New Delhi 1979. 4 Towards Equality : Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India or CSWI, Ministry of Education and Social Welfare, GOI, 1975 chp, VIII, pp. 322. 5 Draft Sixth Five Year plan, pp 49-50. 6 Sixth Five Year Plan, Government of India Planning Commission, 1980, pp 20-21. 7 The Approach to the Seventh Five Year Plan, GOI Planning Commission, 1984. 8 Country "Statement, International Conference on Population, Mexico, August. 1984, GOI, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, p.4. 9 Ashok Mitra, op at, Vol. Lpp.438. 10 Towards Equality op at, Chp. II. 11 See Table on Demographic Trends in India (1921-81) attached. 12 Country Statement, op cit, p.4, 13 There is a continuing debate regarding the comparability of data on women's economic participation calculated by various Census owing to changes in definition of workers. A strong view is (hat definitional differences should not be over-emphasised in order to understate the gravity of the declining trend in women's economic participation, as stated^ by Prof, Ashok Mitra in Status of Women: Shifts in Occupational Patterns, 1961-71 Introduction, Abhinav Publishers, Delhi, 1979. 14 Family Planning in the 1980s: Challenges and Opportunities. Reports of the International Conference on Family Planning in the 80s, Djakarta 1981, UNFPA, and the Population Council New York. 15 Chrostopher Tietze, Induced Abortion, A World Review. A Population Council Fact Book, V Edition, 0.8. 16 /W,otcit,pp.l4. 17 Ibid, pp., 25. '18 Ibid. 19 Dr. Imrana Qadeer, during a meeting held in Delhi on 15 July, 1982, to protest against the sex determination tests. 20 Vibhuti Patel; Amniocentasis ad Female Foetocide. Misuse of Medical Technology, Socialist Health Review, Vol. I, No. 2, Sept '84. 21 Imrana Qadeer, op cit. 22 Towards Equality, op cit, pp. 326. 23 Malcolm Adesesiah, At a discussion organised bv the Family Planning Foundation,\l&elhi January, 1985.