ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Professor Ahsan Iqbal on Monday said Pakistan requires a 7 percent economic growth rate to accommodate 1.8 million new job-seekers annually, which was impeded by rapid population growth.
The minister noted that this demographic pressure threatens to turn potential youth development into a significant employment crisis. Unchecked population growth remains Pakistan’s most critical and structural challenge, undermining economic progress and human development, he said.
He expressed these views while speaking at the launch of a research study titled “Impact of Population Growth on Human Security in Pakistan”. The minister stressed that no country in history has achieved sustained progress with such a high growth rate.
The event, held at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute, brought together academia, media, government representatives, and members from civil society.
The study highlights that Pakistan’s high population growth rate of 2.55 percent and a fertility rate of 3.6 percent add six million people to the country every year. This rapid expansion creates a massive employment hurdle, bringing 1.8 million new job-seekers into the market annually.
To successfully absorb these new entrants, Pakistan requires an annual economic growth rate of 7 percent. Analysts warn that if current trends continue, the national population will reach 340 million by 2050 and exceed 400 million by 2100.
A central focus of the discussion was the severe dilution of economic gains caused by rapid demographic growth. The minister explained that if the economy grows at three percent while the population increases by 2.5 percent, real progress is reduced to just half a percent. This imbalance creates a striking contradiction in the national development model, where economic indicators approach middle-income status but social indicators resemble those of the least developed nations.
The main theme of the study was the impact of population growth on the human security with special reference to the four variables like education, health, food and economic security.
The minister identified structural flaws in the current resource distribution mechanism as a major hurdle to population management. The current framework links population size directly to resource allocation and political representation.
This system inadvertently discourages provinces from implementing population control measures, as success could lead to a decline in their share of federal resources. To address this, the minister called for urgent reforms to introduce incentives for demographic efficiency within the National Finance Commission framework, ensuring that provinces are not penalized for effective family planning.
“Our NFC formula should also be altered to reward the demographic efficiency instead of rewarding high population numbers,” he said.
Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2026