TY - JOUR TI - A Population Policy Rationale for the Twenty-First Century AB - I propose that the primary goal of twenty-first-century population policies should be to strengthen the human resource base for national and global sustainable development. I discuss the shortcomings of the three dominant twentieth-century population policy rationales: acceptance of replacement-level fertility as a demographic goal; realizing a "demographic dividend" from the changing age structure; and filling the "unmet need" for family planning. I demonstrate that in all three cases the explicit incorporation of education into the model changes the picture and makes female education a key population policy priority. Population policies under this new rationale could be viewed as public human resource management. I argue that 20 years after the Cairo ICPD the international community needs a new rationale for population policies in the context of sustainable development and that a focus on human capital development, in particular education and health, is the most promising approach. SP - 527 EP - 544 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2014.00696.x PY - 2014-02-01 JO - Population and Development Review AU - Lutz, Wolfgang ER -