Organizational Waves

Abstract

The Korean Family Planning Program has been in active operation for well over a decade. During that time it has recruited more than two million IUD acceptors, more than 200,000 sterilization acceptors, and more than 700,000 users of oral contraceptive pills (Kim, Ross, Worth, 1972 p. 215~16, and Nortman, 1974, p. 62). During the decade of the 1960s the total fertility rate dropped by 23%, form 5,525 to 4,480, and the age-specific fertility rate dropped in every age group except the 25-29 year group. The declines in the age groups under 20 and over 35 have been between 40% and 68%. Korea is one of the very few countries in the world in which it can be effectively demonstrated that the family planning program has had a unique and powerful impact in the direction of reducing fertility (Lapham, 1972 and Kim, Ross, and Worth, 1972 p. 169/70). Organizationally, the program is well beyond the first generation problems of creating a structure and putting effective work into that structure. There is a distinct family planning section within the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs. It has effective links to a specialized institute for research and training, and to such private organizations as the Planned Parenthood Federation of Korea. There has been extensive research on the general demographic problem, on the acceptors of program services, and on the organizational structure of the program itself. The program can now be said to face a series of second generation problems, in which policy makers focus upon more refined adjustments to more subtle problems both in the population of acceptors and in the organization itself. One of these problems is seasonal variation.