The Demographic Legislation of the European Socialist Countries

Abstract

In the contemporary world, population problems, which have a significant influence on the rates of socioeconomic development of various countries, are increasingly attracting the attention of the world public, and are being discussed by such international organizations as the UN, UNESCO, WHO, and others. The great importance of population problems is testified to by UN resolutions proclaiming 1974 the Year of Population and 1979 the Year of the Child. Demographic processes are social processes having many aspects. Therefore, in order to attain effective theoretical and practical results in study both of those problems themselves and of the possibility of controlling them, there is a need for very close cooperation among specialists in different disciplines. "Problems of the environment and of population, which have grown more acute of late, must not escape the attention of Soviet scholars," commented L. I. Brezhnev at the Twenty-fifth Congress of the CPSU. "Improvement of socialist utilization of nature and the development of an effective demographic policy are an important task for a whole group of natural and social sciences." Lawyers have a considerable role to play in resolving that complex task. Today there is no longer any doubt that the law is capable of influencing not only the demographic behavior of citizens but the dynamics of the entire demographic system, i.e., a change, in the course of its functioning, of a set of parameters descriptive of the system as a whole.