• Countries having no explicit policy, i.e., no deliberate intervention in population processes;

• Countries having pronatal policy; and

• Countries having antinatal policy.

Not all countries have an officially declared population policy. There are countries which have a high growth rate of population but did not deem it necessary to change the situation. Some of them want the growth rate to remain high for religious, political or other reasons. Thus those who have no policy may be satisfied with the present trends or believe that socio-economic development will change the family size in the desired direction. Pronatal policy implies a policy that favours raising fertility rate. Antinatal policy implies a policy that attempts to bring down fertility rates.

Candidly, the developed countries which have a declining fertility and fear aging of population and declining growth rate, favour pronatal policy, whereas the developing countries favour the opposite. The developing countries have faced the population explosion in much of 1960s and 1970s and fear adverse effects of population on savings and capital, and culture and society. They have antinatal population policy.

The policy statements are expected to include: discussion of the present demographic scenario; their implications for development; statement of a preferred demographic scenario commensurate with the short term and long term development goals of the country; and strategies to materialize the preferred demographic scenario, often combined with time bound targets and calculations of requirements of resources. The policy statement is issued with the approval of the head of the state and is not simply a statement of goals of its intellectuals, academicians, political parties, or one particular department of government.