Limits of the institutional approach

There are basically two problems with institutional approach : (a) insufficient understanding of the full and long term implications of interventions/revolutions (which may lead to a worst combination of the new and the old institutions); and (b) devaluation of the role of morals.

Insufficient understanding of the future

The major problem with the institutional approach is that one cannot see all the impacts institutional interventions are likely to produce. Moreover societies differ in terms of effectiveness of the state. More is a state soft weaker are the consequences of state policies and more is a state hard more powerful are the consequences. The consequences are both good and bad; some intended and some unintended. The case of population policy of China illustrates this best. After a period of rejection of the role of population in development during Cultural Revolution of Mao Zedong, 1966-1976, Chinese government adopted a one-child policy. As a result of that they could reduce their total fertility rate from 5.8 in 1970 to 2.7 in 1978 and further to less than 2 in early 1990s. However, this could be achieved at a great cost to women (Cai, 2010). Due to patriarchal, patrilineal, patrilocal agrarian structure this policy led to several untoward consequences also. Some of them are as follows (Greenhalgh, 2010):

• Forced sterilization of women without proper health care, i.e., without proper equipment and anesthesia.

• Emergence of a vulnerable category of children who should not have been born but were born. They were deprived of all the benefits accruing to wanted children who were properly registered with state agencies.

• Female feticide and abandonment of female children, leading to declining sex ratio.

• Sudden aging of population leading to increase in proportion of the older population.

• Several illegal practices used to conceal childbirth or get the child regularized.