July 14, 2005

Population grows fastest in the world’s poorest countries as high fertility rates have historically been strongly correlated with poverty and high childhood mortality rates. Falling fertility rates are generally associated with improved standards of living, increased life expectancy, and lowered infant mortality, writes Qurratulain Poonawala

In the 1960s, the silence and serenity of Karachi’s wide roads was occasionally disrupted by the rumbling of a few cars or the infamous trams. Few people and even fewer vehicles frequented the roads, each doing so at a leisurely pace. The standard of general cleanliness was very high and environmental pollution was almost non-existent.

In the last decade of the 20th century, the average commuter who travelled by public transport on the same roads on an average got stuck for two hours per day i.e., 730 hours a year — in traffic jams. This isn’t news to anyone who resides in or visits Karachi. However, more time behind the wheels is not the only negative consequence of the population explosion. Lack of potable water and the urban sprawl are prominent among others problems.

This is how the average citizen fights the time bomb of population on a daily basis. However, the residents of the Karachi metropolitan area are not alone in their struggle to deal with the strains of rapid, unprecedented population growth.

Around 1810 the human population was one billion, and 120 years later, in 1930, it doubled to two billion people, and reached four billion in 1975, 45 years later. Today, the world population is 6.5 billion and is growing by 76 million per year; in other words, another New York City is being added to the planet every 11 weeks (or nearly three months). According to the United Nations, by 2050 another 2.6 billion people will be added to the planet; a number equal to the world’s population in the 1950s. This means that more people are now being added each day than at any other time in human history.

All too often we think of over-population as over-crowdedness, but there is far more than what meets the eye. The key to understanding over-population is not population density, but the number of people in an area relative to its resources and the capacity of the environment to sustain human activities.

An area is regarded as over-populated when its population can’t be maintained without rapidly depleting non-renewable resources (or converting renewable resources into non-renewable ones) and also without degrading the capacity of the environment to support the population. In short, if the long-term carrying capacity of an area is clearly being degraded by its current human occupants that area is over-populated. By this standard, the entire planet and virtually every country is already over-populated.

In the past, infant and childhood deaths and short life spans used to limit population growth. In today’s world, thanks to improved nutrition, sanitation and medical care, more and more children survive their formative years of life. The success in reducing death rates has been attributed to factors such as increases in food production and distribution, improvement in public health (water and sanitation), and advancement in medical technology (vaccines and antibiotics), along with gains in education and standards of living within many developing countries.

The combination of a continuing high birth rate and a low death rate (in countries with low life expectancies) is creating a rapid population increase in many countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Rapid population growth has placed incredible stress on the planet’s limited resources. Global demand for water has tripled since the `50s, but the supply of fresh drinking water has been declining because of over-pumping and contamination caused by fertilizers, pesticides and industrial pollution. According to the UN, half a billion people now live in the water-stressed or water-scarce countries, and by 2025 that number will grow to about three billion.

The increasing human population is also responsible for extensive land degradation. In the last 50 years, cultivable land has been reduced by 13 per cent, and pastures by four per cent. With more and more mouths to feed and fewer acres of productive land, food production lags behind population growth in several countries. Similar grim statistics can be cited about forest cover, fish stocks, or climate change.

Rich and poor countries alike are affected by population growth, though the population of industrial countries is growing more slowly than that of developing ones. At the present growth rates, the population of economically developed countries would double in 120 years, while that of the Third World — with over three-quarters of the populace — would double its numbers in about 33 years.

Population grows fastest in the world’s poorest countries as high fertility rates have historically been strongly correlated with poverty and high childhood mortality rates. Falling fertility rates are generally associated with improved standards of living, increased life expectancy, and lowered infant mortality.

Cultures, which have flourished in the East, have the expectation that parents will be taken care of in their old age by their children. Parents use children as emotional insurance and strive for larger families to ensure that future. Giving in further to moral, religious and social pressures they, in effect, obtain a licence for the large families.

This holds true for most of the developing countries, and Pakistan, caught in a deadly population explosion, is no exception. Its population increased from 34 million in 1951 to 144 million in 2001. The increase of over 108 million people in five decades is scary to say the least as supporting factors such as a strong economy and sound health and education facilities have not been re-enforced.

It has been estimated by the ministry of population and planning that the continuing high population growth will result in Pakistan’s population reaching approximately 220 million by 2020, thus crushing most efforts being made towards poverty alleviation. Pakistan’s extremely high rate of population growth is the direct effect of a relatively falling death rate combined with a continuing high birth rate. The ministry says that in 1950 the mortality rate was 27 per 1,000 population, which by 1990 had dropped to an estimated 12 per 1,000.

Of course, few can deny that Pakistan is facing an intense crisis of resources. There is competition for the country’s limited natural resources. Our land and water resources are being exploited to the maximum. The exploitation of the resources is threatening the forests, natural reserves and general ecology. Over use of resources is contributing to the natural disasters occurring more frequently and with greater devastation.

The increased population is putting pressure on the food supply’s quality and quantity while the dwindling land and water resources are forcing the agriculture to steadily increase the productivity of the land through higher yields and crop intensity, even though that is next to impossible.

To meet the challenge of food supply for the ever-increasing population of Pakistan, there is an urgent need to boost the crop yield. However, Pakistan like many developing countries of the world, is faced with the problem of low agricultural productivity. Many countries including Pakistan are faced with the challenge of producing more food and fibre, while there is little room for expansion in the cultivated area, and yield per unit area of various crops is very low. This points to an unprecedented shortage of agricultural products in the future, thus questioning the availability of food — the basic need for survival.

Economically speaking, with over one-third of Pakistanis living in poverty, the impact of population growth cannot be taken lightly on any account. It is the very strata living in poverty which has to deal with the burden of a large family. Their meagre resources for a large family obviously worsens living conditions further, leaving these very households to resort to desperate means which are a blow to the society.

Evil as it is, over-population can rightly be said to contribute to poor housing and sanitation conditions, malnutrition and a general environmental degradation. Problems like lack of resources multiply and issues like inaccessibility to safe drinking water, pressures on agricultural yield and malnutrition in poor families’ lead to a nation’s collapse.

Among the negative factors associated with the rapid growth of population are poor prospects for economic development, high unemployment, high mortality rates among women and children, and generally a poor quality of life. Certain poverty-stricken souls born amidst dismal circumstances are trapped in the reverse income flow of child labour.

Under-privileged families can easily be exploited in a dysfunctional welfare system, when parents are unable to raise their offspring even according to the minimum required criterion. Thus, they further fuel their desperation and those of their future generations by getting caught in a brutal daily wage survival mode.

Of course, the economic dimension of the issue appears dominant but the psychological and social aspects are no less weighty and crucial either. Generally, the rising population growth has adversely affected the quality of life of the people. Not only has the urban sprawl led to exorbitant land and housing prices, it has also led to environmental degradation and other social and psychological problems like frustration, intolerance and thus increase in the crime rate, sexual discrimination, lack of adequate health and educational facilities.

The good news is that we can stem the population explosion. In fact, after decades of hard work of promoting family planning, increasing contraceptive availability and empowering women; fertility rates are falling around the world. In parts of the developed world, total fertility rates have fallen below replacement rates with Spain and Italy being as low as 1.3 per cent.

Declining fertility rates in the highly developed nations will have a positive impact on the entire globe. Since the consumption levels of an average person in a high-income country is about 10 to 20 times higher than that of someone in a low-income country. Slowed population growth in the developed world has a positive effect on reducing the stress on our environment. Moreover, since the highly developed nations have long served as a model for developing nations, low fertility rates in affluent nations are likely to encourage developing nations to follow suit.

The Pakistani culture and mindset is bent towards patriarchy where women have little or no say in such matters. Also rigid moral and religious views on family planning prevail among Pakistani families. Only 14.6 per cent people are aware of the use of population planning. There is no public medium to educate on the subject because of religious and social taboos. The messages of family planning on TV, radio, newspapers and posters are vague, as they have to conform to our social set up. People do not understand these messages very well.

Family planning campaigns are run in a non-motivational manner with unskilled and incapable staff, which fail to create awareness among the people and especially the poor people. The root of the matter lies in bringing about a change of attitude in the psyche of the masses. Realizing the fact that despite the ego-satiation of having many sons or being a means of old age security, having a large number of children is not an asset but a liability, which would mean half the problem solved.

The Pakistani Government has launched some schemes to increase awareness and control the high growth rate. The government is making efforts to overcome the lack of knowledge in the illiterate populace of Pakistan and help people get over their inhibitions and misconceptions about family planning.

It is very important that people are encouraged to use contraceptives. Moreover, the proper information and guides should be as easily available as possible to all those who wish to acquire them. Studies should be carried out to find out men’s and women’s perceived contraceptive and sexual health service needs, as well as why existing techniques are not working that effectively.

Moreover, religious scholars and ulema should be persuaded to educate people about the importance of family planning in the light of Islamic teachings so as to build stable Islamic societies. The spirit of open communication and empowerment of individual women and men is the key to a successful solution to many population problems. Collective vision and provision of health care, family planning, counselling and women’s edition at the community level build a basis for action.

Having stepped into the 21st century and the world thinks, breathes, sleeps rocket science and just when we thought explosions in this day and age are about nuclear and atomic bombs, we are tormented with an even more devastating explosion that affects us economically, socially and psychologically and which needs to be addressed on an individual as well as the national level because our future and those of our cities and our planet depends on it.

Pakistan at a glance (1998) census

Area (sq kms) ……………………………….796,096
Population (000) …………………………….132,352
Male ………………………………………….68,874
Female ……………………………………….63,478
Sex ratio (males per 100 females) ……………108.5
Population Density (persons per sq km) ……...166.3
Urban Proportion ………………………………32.50
Average annual growth rate (1981-1998) ………2.69
Literacy ratio (above 10 years of age)…………..43.92
Male …………………………………………….54.81
Female …………………………………………..32.02

Labour force
Participation rate (above 10 years of age) ………31.98
Average household size …………………………..6.8
— Q.P.

Current populations of megacities

Tokyo: ……………..26.4 million
Mexico City:……….18.1 million
Mumbai:……………18.1 million
Sao Paulo:…………..17.8 million
New York City: …….16.6 million
Karachi: …………….2 million
Source: United Nations Development Programme 2004. — Q.P.

Megacities – sweet dreams or nightmares?

A century ago, only one in ten people lived in cities. Today, about three billion people, half of humanity, are urban dwellers. The recently invented word ‘megacity’ calls attention to extraordinarily large urban metropolitan areas with 10 million or more inhabitants — which have characteristically experienced great surges in population. The number of cities that can claim this distinction has climbed from five in 1975 to 14 in 1995 and is expected to reach 26 cities by 2015.

The population of Karachi rose from 200,000 in 1947 to 9.6 million, according to the 1998 census. The population swelled up to 12 million by 2004. This unprecedented growth in Karachi, as in other mega cities of the world, has spawned negative implications of horrendous magnitudes.

Mumbai is set to replace Tokyo as the world’s most populous city by 2020 according to a study released in the US. Mumbai, home to about 18 million people, will over the next two decades see it’s population grow to about 28.5 million, according to the Washington-based Population Institute, in its annual overview of world population trends. Tokyo is expected to be pushed into second place, with a population of 27.3 million by 2020.

By then, India will have three cities in the list of the world’s top ten most populous cities, according to the institute’s projections with Calcutta and New Delhi in ninth and tenth places. New York and Los Angeles will have dropped out of the top ten, ousted by Dhaka and Karachi.

Rapid growth

In 1900, the world’s most populous cities were all in North America and Europe. But at the end of the century, Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles were the only industrialized cities to feature on the list of the 19 cities, which have populations of at least 10 million people.

“While the population growth of cities in the industrialized world has somewhat stabilized, most of the increase is occurring in the cities of the poor, less developed nations,” the institute says. Six of every ten children in the developing world are predicted to live in cities by 2025, and more than half of them will be poor.

At present, 47 per cent of the world’s six billion population lives in cities and more will join them. That will put pressure on governments to make urban areas better places to live. While the main attraction of cities is opportunity, their rapid growth leads to pressures on the infrastructure as manifested by sanitary, health and crime problems. Unskilled people arriving from rural areas frequently end up performing menial jobs at low wages or resorting to begging and stealing, it adds.

Urban pressure

Most of the population increase will take place in the world’s poorer countries, but even in wealthier countries, more and more educated people will move from rural areas to cities in search of better opportunities. “By 2050, an estimated two-thirds of the world’s population will live in urban areas, imposing even more pressure on the space infrastructure and resources of cities, leading to social disintegration and horrific urban poverty,” says Werner Fornos, the institute’s president. — Q.P.

Population statistics for Pakistan

More than 30 million children cannot afford to go to school and are obliged to enter the labour force. — Q.P.

An international ulema conference

To win the support of religious circles in the country, Pakistan convened a conference of religious leaders from 22 Islamic countries, to discuss reducing population growth within the framework of Islamic principles.

Around 90 delegates from almost every school of Islamic thought participated in the three-day “International Ulema Conference on Population and Development,” held in Islamabad from 4th-6th May. “Three main broad perspectives were discussed: population growth and development: mother and child health, and gender equity. The idea was to have the experts’ views on Islamic teachings and the key issue of family planning,” Gohar Ali, director of communications for the conference, said.

In Pakistan, the contraceptive usage rate is considered low, at about 34 per cent, while the average fertility rate stands at 4.1 per cent according to Dr Mehboob Sultan, belonging to the Islamabad-based National Institute of Population Studies (NIPS).

Experts are divided on what role religion plays in low contraceptive use and low take-up of family planning services in Pakistan. “A combination of factors like non-availability of services, baseless traditional beliefs and misconception play a big role. But, still a fairly large number of the population believes the use of artificial contraceptives for family planning is against nature and also against Islam,” said Dr Ansar Ali Khan, an adviser on reproductive health to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Pakistan.

Dr Nabeela Ali belonging to a US-based health research institute, John Snow Inc, agreed that getting local religious figures on board was critical to the success of family planning initiatives. “Positive supportive role of Ulema in promoting the health of mothers, newborns and children, especially in communities with low literacy levels, is as crucial as the role of media and health practitioners,” said Dr Ali.

But some participants were unsure whether consulting ancient Islamic teachings on the issue was useful. Population growth was not a problem in the early and medieval Islamic period and hence no clear-cut answer can be found from historic sources,” said Dr Qibla Ayaz, head of the Islamic Studies department at Peshawar University.

The UNFPA said the meeting had been incredibly useful. “Such conferences are a right step in a right direction to have the religious scholars from across different cultures to discuss the issue and share experiences and then ultimately educating the masses. Religion does not forbid the use of contraceptives,” said UNFPA adviser, Dr Ansar Ali Khan. — Q.P.