Defusing the demographic time device
Syed Fattahul Alim | Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Thomas Robert Malthus some two centuries back made a very practical, though gloomy, prognostication about the fate of human race. He concluded that population increases more than the means of increasing subsistence does. So it would become at a point in time necessary to put a brake on the unchecked growth of population, otherwise the land that produce the food will not be able to keep pace with the increasing number of mouths it feeds. In that case many would starve or remain ill-fed. Malthus (1766-1834) made such prediction at a time when many parts of the world were still virgin and uninhabited. The total population of the world was hardly one billion in 1800. But by 1960 that figure bulged threefold to 3 billion and according to the recent estimate, it is around 6.5 billion. It took more than a century until 1960 to double the size of the world population. But since the 1960s, the world's population has doubled within a span of only 50 years. With its present growth rate at 1.1 per cent, by the next 50 years global population will reach 9.1 billion. And most of the newly born children will be in the developing countries. (According to the Earth Trends and the United Nations Population Division (UNPD) reports, every 9 children out of 10 below 15 years now reside in the developing countries).
The population growth has not, however, affected all countries equally. Frankly speaking, Bangladesh is a worst case scenario in this respect. Here the earth available can hardly accommodate its population which has by now reached 150 million. One may recall here that it was around 750 million just at the inception of independence three decades and eight years back. Or in other words, within a span of less than four decades, the population has just doubled in Bangladesh. Within a land area of around 144,000 sq km or 55,000 sq miles, Bangladesh has to accommodate 150 million people at the moment. By 2020, this figure will rise to 1772 million, and by 2060 the population will reach as high a figure as 210 million. At present with a population growth rate at 1.43 per cent and population density at 953 within each square kilometre of land area, Bangladesh is already a Malthusian nightmare. But is there a visible effort at the national level to address the problem in earnest?
Though the intention of the present write-up is not to hype up an old issue, still the focus is on the raising the awareness about the looming threat afresh. For in a sharp departure from the past discourse on the issues of demographic concern, recently more stress is being laid on population as a resource than a problem. Population is certainly a resource when it is turned into one. One cannot after all say that a mass of ill-fed, unfed and ignorant people, who have no access to the minimum healthcare service, deprived of all the amenities of modern life and susceptible to all kinds of superstitions, bigotry and prejudices constitute any resource for the country. But then, even in case all the citizens have become highly skilled in all the trades on earth that can bring money, one cannot still say that all of them could be provided with job at home as well as abroad. The fact of the matter is that population control is such an important issue for a country like Bangladesh that the issue cannot be diluted under any pretext, however powerful the argument may appear on the face of it.
Therefore, population, though a resource, is still the biggest problem facing the nation. In fact, with its present demographic growth rate, Bangladesh is a veritable population time bomb ticking away inexorably.
However, the general awareness about the exploding population is not new in this part of the world. Even in the past, during the pre-independence days as well the years that followed just after independence, the awareness campaign against rising population and the various scientific measures to contain it was in force in a more vigorous style than it is being observed recently. The government-controlled media dedicated a large chunk of its airtime to the awareness campaign about the dangers of unchecked population growth. The contraceptive tools and the various tips regarding their use were made available to the potential users on their very doorstep. The family planning workers were more active and dedicated at that time than they have become lately, if only because of the necessary government patronage and largesse of the multilateral donors and the UN's support to check the problem of growing population. The non-government organisations, especially after the post-independent days, were very active among the population to reach the necessary information and various family planning services including population control devices in the rural backwaters. The most important contribution they made was through educating the people about the economic and social benefits that flow from maintaining a small family.
The dominant feudal culture in society, especially among the peasantry, dictates that more male children means more farm hands. So, the rural society favours greater number of children with the hope that they might get more boys to help the peasant parents in their farming activities. So, a large family was nothing wrong in a rural context, where the majority of the population resides compared to the urban centres.
But has this reality of the rural society, including the urban pockets where the poorer section of the population lives, undergone any fundamental change during the intervening years? If truth be told, the old habits, the beliefs and prejudices not excepted, die hard. Meanwhile, the necessary intervention from the government and other agencies has visibly become less forceful than it used to be in the past.
The chief adviser Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed at a discussion on the occasion of the World Population Day 2008 last Friday admitted that the rate of unmet need in the family planning sector is now 17.6 per cent, which was 11.3 per cent in 2004. This is an increase of over 6 per cent in just four years' time. And the percentage of the unmet need is still higher at 19.8 per cent among the juvenile married women between 15 and 19 years, he further informed. The simple fact takes a threatening proportion when one also takes into consideration that the juveniles between 10 and19 years, constitute 23 per cent of the total population.
However, one can see nowadays see more birth control devices on display in the ads on the electronic and print media than it was the case before. But those are for the people who are self-motivated and can afford to buy those for themselves. The majority, on the other hand, need the necessary motivation as well as the incentives to lay their hands on those devices and services.
Under the circumstances, the government as well as the various donor-supported agencies and the NGOs need again to turn their attention to the old problem of population and the task of reaching the services to the people with the same dedication and enthusiasm as in the past.
As the land area of Bangladesh is not increasing, so it cannot ever stop its unremitting war against unchecked population growth. Now with food crisis looming larger over the global horizon, the need to keep the number of mouths to be fed within limit has become more urgent. Therefore, the new reality demands more proactive role from the government and other agencies involved to continue the campaign for family planning supported by the necessary incentives more vigorously than before.
The population growth has not, however, affected all countries equally. Frankly speaking, Bangladesh is a worst case scenario in this respect. Here the earth available can hardly accommodate its population which has by now reached 150 million. One may recall here that it was around 750 million just at the inception of independence three decades and eight years back. Or in other words, within a span of less than four decades, the population has just doubled in Bangladesh. Within a land area of around 144,000 sq km or 55,000 sq miles, Bangladesh has to accommodate 150 million people at the moment. By 2020, this figure will rise to 1772 million, and by 2060 the population will reach as high a figure as 210 million. At present with a population growth rate at 1.43 per cent and population density at 953 within each square kilometre of land area, Bangladesh is already a Malthusian nightmare. But is there a visible effort at the national level to address the problem in earnest?
Though the intention of the present write-up is not to hype up an old issue, still the focus is on the raising the awareness about the looming threat afresh. For in a sharp departure from the past discourse on the issues of demographic concern, recently more stress is being laid on population as a resource than a problem. Population is certainly a resource when it is turned into one. One cannot after all say that a mass of ill-fed, unfed and ignorant people, who have no access to the minimum healthcare service, deprived of all the amenities of modern life and susceptible to all kinds of superstitions, bigotry and prejudices constitute any resource for the country. But then, even in case all the citizens have become highly skilled in all the trades on earth that can bring money, one cannot still say that all of them could be provided with job at home as well as abroad. The fact of the matter is that population control is such an important issue for a country like Bangladesh that the issue cannot be diluted under any pretext, however powerful the argument may appear on the face of it.
Therefore, population, though a resource, is still the biggest problem facing the nation. In fact, with its present demographic growth rate, Bangladesh is a veritable population time bomb ticking away inexorably.
However, the general awareness about the exploding population is not new in this part of the world. Even in the past, during the pre-independence days as well the years that followed just after independence, the awareness campaign against rising population and the various scientific measures to contain it was in force in a more vigorous style than it is being observed recently. The government-controlled media dedicated a large chunk of its airtime to the awareness campaign about the dangers of unchecked population growth. The contraceptive tools and the various tips regarding their use were made available to the potential users on their very doorstep. The family planning workers were more active and dedicated at that time than they have become lately, if only because of the necessary government patronage and largesse of the multilateral donors and the UN's support to check the problem of growing population. The non-government organisations, especially after the post-independent days, were very active among the population to reach the necessary information and various family planning services including population control devices in the rural backwaters. The most important contribution they made was through educating the people about the economic and social benefits that flow from maintaining a small family.
The dominant feudal culture in society, especially among the peasantry, dictates that more male children means more farm hands. So, the rural society favours greater number of children with the hope that they might get more boys to help the peasant parents in their farming activities. So, a large family was nothing wrong in a rural context, where the majority of the population resides compared to the urban centres.
But has this reality of the rural society, including the urban pockets where the poorer section of the population lives, undergone any fundamental change during the intervening years? If truth be told, the old habits, the beliefs and prejudices not excepted, die hard. Meanwhile, the necessary intervention from the government and other agencies has visibly become less forceful than it used to be in the past.
The chief adviser Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed at a discussion on the occasion of the World Population Day 2008 last Friday admitted that the rate of unmet need in the family planning sector is now 17.6 per cent, which was 11.3 per cent in 2004. This is an increase of over 6 per cent in just four years' time. And the percentage of the unmet need is still higher at 19.8 per cent among the juvenile married women between 15 and 19 years, he further informed. The simple fact takes a threatening proportion when one also takes into consideration that the juveniles between 10 and19 years, constitute 23 per cent of the total population.
However, one can see nowadays see more birth control devices on display in the ads on the electronic and print media than it was the case before. But those are for the people who are self-motivated and can afford to buy those for themselves. The majority, on the other hand, need the necessary motivation as well as the incentives to lay their hands on those devices and services.
Under the circumstances, the government as well as the various donor-supported agencies and the NGOs need again to turn their attention to the old problem of population and the task of reaching the services to the people with the same dedication and enthusiasm as in the past.
As the land area of Bangladesh is not increasing, so it cannot ever stop its unremitting war against unchecked population growth. Now with food crisis looming larger over the global horizon, the need to keep the number of mouths to be fed within limit has become more urgent. Therefore, the new reality demands more proactive role from the government and other agencies involved to continue the campaign for family planning supported by the necessary incentives more vigorously than before.