Ghazala Anbreen
Pakistan is the fifth most populous country in the world. As per 2023 digital census of Pakistan, the population is 241.49 million. It was the 7th census in Pakistan. About 5.53 million new births in Pakistan are there every year while alone Norway’s whole population is 5.46 million people.
The world population in 1974 was 3.99 billion and in 2023 it was 8 billion. In 1971 East Pakistan’s population was 75 million and that of West Pakistan was 60 million. In 2023 the population of Bangladesh was 172 million and Pakistan was 241 million. In Pakistan the fertility rate is 3.5 and in Turkiye it is 1.88. it is important to note here that even the Islamic countries like Iran and Bangladesh have successfully controlled their populations.
The mindset of the less educated people is like that they take more kids as an asset for them. Cultural norms play a vital role in moulding such opinions. Many people lack information about family control methods. The subject is considered a taboo to be discussed in media and in public. All of these social attitudes are aggravating the problem.
Social problems in areas as health, education, transport, water and power get intensified due to this snow ball effect caused by rapid increase in population. At state level old age benefits are scare. The people feel afraid that in old age they may face difficulties in living a comfortable life and therefore, consider sons as a help during that time of vulnerability. Often in a desire to have a son, people go on having many daughters till they are blessed with a son.
The population of Pakistan is growing at a much rapid pace. It results into water scarcity and malnutrition among kids of the poor families. All this impedes the pace of the economic development. More the population grows, more students with degrees are there graduating every year. But the avenues for employments remain scanty, especially in the wake of artificial intelligence, the impending fear is looming all over the world that more people will go out of jobs as robots will replace them.
Another alarming situation is that abnormal increase in population leads to more urbanization. There emerges a need for establishing more colonies and societies to accommodate the huge number of people. This causes adverse impacts on environment. Infrequent resources, water crisis and inability of catering to the basic needs of ordinary people come out as the big challenges. Overburdened infrastructure, competition for resources, low per capita income become inevitable as a consequence.
This leads to a low yield and low productivity. The results will be evident in the growth of slums in bigger cities, poor sanitation, malnutrition, low mortality due to advancement in medical technology to treat the deadly diseases. On a planet with dwindling resources, more people mean more demand of natural resources and more CFC emissions. Pollution is due to more movement of the population. It is not the huge population that is making the difference, it is the huge use of resources. Education prospects suffer too. UNICEF data suggests that Pakistan has the world’s second highest number of out of school children (22.8 million) with age bracket of 5-16.
Every year 11th July is celebrated as world population day and the purpose of celebrating this day is to make the masses aware of evoking their rational faculties to be sensible about the size of the families as per their resources. Every parent would like to give their kids a better future by giving them best education and opportunities for becoming a productive citizen. That is possible only if the people start realizing the importance of having families as per their means. It should be remembered that this does not come in contravention with the religious principles.
Evolving appropriate strategies regarding small family size is a social development issue. State has to intervene. Otherwise the enormous increase in population size will manifest itself in more number of out of school children. Provision of basic facilities should be the agenda of the political parties’ manifestos. Foremost among these should be the population stabilization, observing the demographic cycle and then evolving a strategy to combat this problem. Achieving the economic growth by lowering population growth must remain the priority of all policy makers. This better economic progress will lead to reduction in poverty. Increase in population should be as per resources, otherwise it becomes a burden on us.
In this connection financial incentives can be given to those who want to rear small families. For instance, a small tax exemption for the people with less number of kids will encourage other people to follow suit. There is a need to educate people through media and civic society. Only then we can use our population as a human capital. Child marriage should be strictly prohibited.
Although it is legally prohibited under the Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929 but under a new Bill passed by the Senate of Pakistan, the minimum age of marriage for a female is fixed as 18 years and if somebody violates this he will be punished with a fine of Rs.1000 and an imprisonment of one month or both but still there is a need for further rigorous punishments. There must be an open debate on the subject.
Political parties should talk on this issue at length. Seldom it is seen that topics like abnormal increase in population, street children, water scarcity become agenda for political parties’ manifestos. They should be part of the national discourse as well.
There is a need to make people aware about ways of birth control and tell them its importance National awareness campaign by media and religious people will also help achieve the purpose to a great extent. TV, radio and social media can play a persuasive role in starting media campaigns. Religious scholars exercise quite an influence in Pakistan. They can be asked to preach this cause among the illiterate and semi educated people. They must educate the people, make them aware about the benefits of having small families.
Advocacy through public figures, opinion builders and influencers about adopting the modern techniques to control population thereby checking the birth rate to see that the effects of our economic development are not neutralized by huge increase in population can be a productive step. Multi sector approach through coordination of different ministries can also produce good results. All religious organizations and NGOs must participate in this cause and propound the policy that we have to exercise a balance between population and resources. That is how China was able to control its population by taking suitable measures. Now its population is 1.42 billion and in 2018 it was 1.39 billion. While the population of Pakistan saw an increase of 25.5 million population in previous 6 years.
Advocacy of small family size of those who lack knowledge to practice this in reality, living in the rural areas and a change in the belief and value system is required, the negation of those obsolete ideas and promotion of forward looking thinking is the need of the time, focusing on mass education, promoting macro and micro level efforts, paving public opinion through effective use of media are some of the measures which can help overcome this malediction. Various influential groups, media professionals and experts and intelligentsia all should try and serve this national cause by moulding the public opinion and sensitizing them.
Training and capacity building of concerned staff in the subject under discussion and projection of population welfare programs on a wide scale can help produce commendable results. It should be imparted to all population welfare training personnel. In service and pre-service trainings should be mandatory.
A comprehensive human resource development plan must be prepared to cater to the needs of the new training skills and refresher courses should be arranged to impart training as per contemporary needs. Coordination of all the related departments is essential in this context. Health ministry, education Ministry and the social welfare sector can work through a concerted effort and devise a monitoring mechanism to gauge the effectiveness of the policies.
Management information system can help ensuring the review and Logistic management information system can be devised for ensuring the smooth functioning for supply chain system. GIS mapping system can help finding out whether the different staff and different material are being utilized correctly.
The role of research cannot be ignored in population development, and population management.
The researchers can be assigned the task of taking the samples in different fields and conduct surveys to make it a success. If all the aforementioned departments try work on these scientific principles and consider it as a cause to make our country progress, we can surely control the population to a great extent.
The 18th Amendment led to the increase in fiscal allocation to provinces’ share in the NFC Award on the basis of population. Some experts opine that it needs to be revisited by laying emphasis on other indicators like women empowerment and their contribution to generate financial revenue. Moreover, focus should be to impart skills to the population to make them productive in and out of the country.
