The population policy is an instrument aimed at overcoming the contradictions between individual and societal interests in the sphere of population, or one aimed at overcoming the contradictions between population development and the needs of social and economic development in a society. The contents of the population policy include a set of measures which are designed to influence the population development in a given way which reflects the momentary or the perspective interests of the society and which reflect the quantitative or qualitative characteristics of the population in a particular area. The aims of population policy include dealing with population size, structure, and spatial distribution of population. In the interests of achieving these aims, society attempts to affect the processes of fertility, mortality, and migration. In the narrower sense, population policy includes such measures of society as influence the development of quantitative and qualitative characteristics; in the broader sense, it includes measures of immediate influence as well as those which influence population development indirectly. These may be measures which are designed to influence other sectors of societal life but which have certain consequences or secondary effects upon the population. Population policy is a separate, relatively autonomous branch of the general societal policy. The autonomy results from the fact that population policy is a practical application of a separate branch of science known as demography as well as from the fact that population policy has its own specific aims differing from aims in other branches of societal policy. (author's modified)