Amid alarming levels of population growth in Pakistan, experts warn that the country may not be able to meet the needs of its rapidly expanding population. Faisalabad alone has witnessed 50,000 births in the last 10 days, with Lahore trailing slightly behind at 36,672.
Today, Pakistan exhibits the highest rate of growth among the world’s largest countries and according to some projections, will become the third most populated country by 2050. These demographic indicators are evidence that the country’s family planning policies have failed to produce the outcomes they desired. Since Pakistan first adopted its Family Planning and Population Welfare Programme in the early 1960s, more than Rs 8 billion has been spent without any real results. Contraceptive use in the country has been minimal. There has been no rise in the age at which people get married and birth rates have not fallen. With an economy that has historically failed to keep up with the rate of population growth, Pakistan is now faced with the greatest challenge in its history-absorbing its nightmarishly large population into productive employment.
Economic analysts have always correlated poor economic progress with population growth, especially in developing countries, like Pakistan, where modern institutions have yet to formulate mechanisms to organize society. In South-East Asia, notably South Korea, shifts to smaller family units and slower population growth played a key role in operationalizing the workforce by encouraging household and government savings that led to a growth in technological investment. Political governance in Pakistan, on the other hand, has gone through multiple upheavals, alternating frantically between periods of civilian and military rule. Our institutions simply aren’t temperamentally fit to mitigate the adverse effects of a large population. Compared to advanced economies where technological progress has been able to facilitate population growth, Pakistan struggles to provide its people with the bare fundamentals.
Even among other developing countries, Pakistan has an uncharacteristically high number of people under the age of 20. Its large dependency ratio has exerted unnecessary pressure on GDP growth, with fewer people available to contribute to the labour market. Rising consumption among young people has forced the government to dip into its savings and increase public expenditure; reducing rates of savings and investments and aggravating mass unemployment and poverty. Crucial resources have been lost in the country’s race against its population boom. To achieve sustained economic growth, which is always multidimensional, the country must transform on many fronts-the first step is recognizing the implications of a large population, which is not yet mainstream knowledge in Pakistan. Policymakers have consistently downplayed the implications of a rapidly growing population and failed to integrate these considerations into their developmental strategy. Population issues never seem to make the headlines. It’s high time we change that.
https://dailytimes.com.pk/1044732/population-explosion-5/
No comments:
Post a Comment