Pakistan's Population Growth: Blessing or Curse?
By Riaz Haq
CA
“So where will the children of the future come from? Increasingly they will come from people who are at odds with the modern world. Such a trend, if sustained, could drive human culture off its current market-driven, individualistic, modernist course, gradually creating an anti-market culture dominated by fundamentalism - a new dark ages.”
― Philip Longman, The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity & What to Do About It
Fear of Population Bomb: The above quote captures the true essence of the West's racist fears about what some of them call the "population bomb": East will dominate the West economically and politically for centuries if the growing colored populations of developing Asia and Africa turn the West's former colonies into younger and more dynamic nations with rising education and better living standards.
Much of the developed world has already fallen below the "replacement" fertility rate of 2.1. Fertility rates impact economic dynamism, cultural stability and political and military power in the long run.
Pakistan Population Growth: Pakistani women's fertility rates have declined significantly from about 4.56 in 2000 to 2.86 babies per woman in 2014, a drop of 37% in 14 years . It is being driven by the same forces that have worked in the developed world in the last century: increasing urbanization, growing incomes, greater participation in the workforce and rising education. Pakistan now ranks 65 among 108 countries with TFR of 2.1 (replacement rate) or higher.
Pakistan is already the most urbanized country in South Asia and its urbanization is accelerating. The country has also continued to offer much greater upward economic and social mobility to its citizens than neighboring India over the last two decades. Since 1990, Pakistan's middle class has expanded by 36.5% and India's by only 12.8%, according to an ADB report titled "Asia's Emerging Middle Class: Past, Present And Future.
Pakistan has the world’s sixth largest population, seventh largest Diaspora and the ninth largest labor force with growing human capital . With rapidly declining fertility and aging populations in the industrialized world, Pakistan's growing talent pool is likely to play a much bigger role to satisfy global demand for workers in the 21st century and contribute to the well-being of Pakistan as well as other parts of the world.
With half the population below 20 years and 60 per cent below 30 years, Pakistan is well-positioned to reap what is often described as "demographic dividend" , with its workforce growing at a faster rate than total population. This trend is estimated to accelerate over several decades. Contrary to the oft-repeated talk of doom and gloom, average Pakistanis are now taking education more seriously than ever. Youth literacy is about 70% and growing, and young people are spending more time in schools and colleges to graduate at higher rates than their Indian counterparts in 15+ age group, according to a report on educational achievement by Harvard University researchers Robert Barro and Jong-Wha Lee . Vocational training is also getting increased focus since 2006 under National Vocational Training Commission (NAVTEC) with help from Germany, Japan, South Korea and the Netherlands .
Pakistan's work force is over 60 million strong, according to the Federal Bureau of Statistics . With increasing female participation , the country's labor pool is growing at a rate of 3.5% per year, according to the International Labor Organization .
With rising urban middle class , there is substantial and growing demand in Pakistan from students, parents and employers for private quality higher education along with a willingness and capacity to pay relatively high tuition fees, according to the findings of Austrade , an Australian government agency promoting trade. Private institutions are seeking affiliations with universities abroad to ensure they offer information and training that is of international standards.
Trans-national education (TNE) is a growing market in Pakistan and recent data shows evidence of over 40 such programs running successfully in affiliation with British universities at undergraduate and graduate level, according to The British Council . Overall, the UK takes about 65 per cent of the TNE market in Pakistan.
It is extremely important for Pakistan's public policy makers and the nation's private sector to fully appreciate the expected demographic dividend as a great opportunity. The best way for them to demonstrate it is to push a pro-youth agenda of education, skills development , health and fitness to take full advantage of this tremendous opportunity. Failure to do so would be a missed opportunity that could be extremely costly for Pakistan and the rest of the world.
In the high fertility countries of Africa and Asia family sizes are continuing to decline. And in low fertility countries family sizes will continue to remain below replacement levels. Why? Because the same juggernaut forces are operating: increasing urbanization, smaller and costly housing, expanding higher education and career opportunities for women, high financial costs and time pressures for childrearing and changing attitudes and lifestyles.
Countries With Declining Populations: 115 countries, including China (1.55), Hong Kong (1.17), Taiwan (1.11) and Singapore (0.8) are well below the replacement level of 2.1 TFR. Their populations will sharply decline in later part of the 21st century.
United States is currently at 2.01 TFR, slightly below the replacement rate. "We don't take a stance one way or the other on whether it's good or bad," said Mark Mather, demographer with the Population Reference Bureau. Small year-to-year changes like those experienced by the United States don't make much difference, he noted. But a sharp or sustained drop over a decade or more "will certainly have long-term consequences for society," he told Utah-based Desert News National .
Japan (1.4 TFR) and Russia (1.6 TFR) are experiencing the sharpest population declines in the world. One manifestation in Japan is the data on diaper sales: Unicharm Corp., a major diaper maker, has seen sales of adult diapers outpace infant diapers since 2013, according to the New York Times .
The Russian population grew from about 100 million in 1950 to almost149 million by the early 1990s. Since then, the Russian population has declined, and official reports put it at around 144 million, according to Yale Global Online .
Reversing Trends: Countries, most recently China, are finding that it is far more difficult to raise low fertility than to reduce high fertility. The countries in the European Union are offering a variety of incentives, including birth starter kits to assist new parents in Finland, cheap childcare centers and liberal parental leave in France, and a year of paid maternity leave in Germany, according to Desert News. But the fertility rates in these countries remain below replacement levels.
Summary: Overzealous Pakistani birth control advocates need to understand what countries with sub-replacement fertility rates are now witnessing: Low birth rates lead to diminished economic growth. "Fewer kids mean fewer tax-paying workers to support public pension programs. An older society, noted the late Nobel laureate economist Gary Becker, is less dynamic, creative and entrepreneurial."
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