POPULATION-DISTRIBUTION POLICIES IN DEVELOPED SOCIALIST AND WESTERN NATIONS

There is a broad similarity in the general approaches of the developed Western and socialist nations toward population distribution policy, despite major political and ideological differences between the two groups of countries and individual nation-by-nation differences in the details of policy instruments employed. In both groups of countries, population redistribution is subsidiary to national and regional development planning, and the policy instruments emphasized are economic measures directed at employing organizations rather than at individuals. Policies in both regions appear to have been only partially successful - a reflection both of the failure of policymakers to make full use of recent research on migration and population distribution and of inadequate understanding of the processes involved.-Authors