Navigating the Population-Development Nexus in Pakistan By Qaiser Rizwan Abbasi
While decaying democratic institutions have been deteriorating public service delivery, governance failures in Pakistan have paved the way for ‘poly-crises’—many crises that converge to reinforce each other and create a tougher challenge. Decades of missed opportunities and governance faultlines since Pakistan’s inception, have led to multidimensional challenges—growing political polarisation, economic stagnation and financial distress, constitutional crisis, and above all, the emergence of non-traditional security challenges. What is being viewed as a highly destructive threat, among all, which poses a daunting challenge to the country’s sustainability is: ‘The Ticking Population Bomb’.
With a population exceeding 230 million, Pakistan ranks as the world’s fifth most populous nation. According to the Population Reference Bureau, 2022, Pakistan’s population is projected to reach 302 million by 2040. This rapidly changing demographic profile of the country presents both opportunities and challenges for political decision-makers, and social scientists alike. Can policymakers—those responsible for changing the fate of the nation—leverage such a massive population to turn it into a ‘Demographic Dividend’?
Pakistan is increasingly becoming an outlier in the South Asian region with a population growth rate of 2.55 percent while other nations including Bangladesh and India, have managed to maintain a growth rate of 1 percent. Besides, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in Pakistan is 3.6 births per woman while other nations have successfully controlled it to an average of 2 children or less. Undoubtedly, these figures paint a dismal picture.
Why Pakistan has failed to effectively design a population planning framework and execute it in letter and spirit? Two factors pertain to political economy. One, the National Finance Commission award (NFC) allocates 82 percent weightage to the demographic size, after the passage of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan. Two, the population figure is directly connected to –parliamentary seats at the national and provincial levels. These two factors are seen as a major disincentive for the state and provincial governments to support a decline in the population growth rate.
While political economy considerations act as a major barrier in controlling rising demographic trajectory, confusion and ambivalence about the permissibility of family planning in Islam have also discouraged people from using any family planning methods—one of the key drivers of fertility. In Pakistan, the national Contraceptive Prevalence rate (CPR) is merely 34.2 percent, including 22.5 percent of users of modern methods.
Due to this reason, there are 6.4 million women face unmet need for contraception, undergoing unplanned pregnancies each year, as per the Population Council report. Catching themselves badly in such a dilemma, women, despite having the desire to have fewer children, are deprived of an opportunity to become productive members of the labor force and contribute to the country’s economy.
In addition to this, policy discontinuity and lack of political will to address serious challenges characterize Pakistan’s governance mechanism. Successive governments have been failing to pay much-needed attention to invest in population planning and ensure fertility transition. Considering the severity of the challenge, it is high time to prioritize the population-development nexus, which has the potential to put Pakistan on the path of sustainable development and economic progress in times to come.
How Pakistan can navigate the Population-Development Nexus? The demographic composition of Pakistan indicates that 64 percent of the population is under age 30. This provides a great window of opportunity to heavily invest in human capital with an emphasis on 3Es—quality Education, gainful Employment, and meaningful Engagement.
First, there is a dire need to ensure the provision of quality education along with effective training in teaching modern skills, and market-demanded attributes in an attempt to make the young population educated, trained, and skilled respectively. As per Article 25A of the Constitution of Pakistan, all children of five to 16 years must be provided free and compulsory education. While the government should focus on developing human capital, it is also imperative to shift towards a ‘Knowledge Economy’—the ability to capitalize on scientific discoveries and technological advancement. India and Bangladesh, in this regard, are good test cases.
Second, as far as gainful employment is concerned, it is worth noting that a UN report highlights that Pakistan needs to generate 1.4 million new jobs each year in order to accommodate the growing working-age population. Undoubtedly, this remains a grave challenge for the sinking economy of the country. The country needs to: (a) improve the ease of doing business and regularity framework; (b) attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI); (c) promote Public Private Partnership (PPP) in various investment regimes; (d) encourage academia-industry collaboration for jobs creation; and (e) expose youth to entrepreneurial activities. These steps will certainly, generate employment opportunities required to absorb an ever-rising ‘Youth Bulge’ in Pakistan.
Third, another critical component needed to develop human capital is meaningful engagement. This means the youth demographic should be encouraged to be able to take part in the political, social, and economic spectrum of the country. Through displaying unique talent, and providing valuable insights and experiences, youth can become part of the public discourse, helping in enacting laws, and making rules and regulations to govern the society. Recent instances in Pakistan’s political and social history proved that the youth has indispensable capabilities to act as an ‘Agent of Change’ & ‘Promoters of Fundamental Human Rights’. If the state successfully empowers the youth demographic with these 3Es, human development outcomes will be enhanced.
Fourth, Pakistan cannot achieve new heights of success in checking population growth unless the female population is taken into consideration. Unsurprisingly, the 49.6 percent of Pakistan’s population is female. Despite having a bigger share in the country’s demographic structure, the female labour force participation rate has abysmally remained low at 26 percent. However, there has been some noticeable improvement in women’s participation in the economy.
Moreover, women should be empowered with the help of providing public services including better education, health, transport, clean water and sanitation, and lucrative paid employment, among others. Not only this, an inclusive approach has to be adopted on the part of federal, provincial, and local governments to improve the WEF Global Gender Gap, in which Pakistan is ranked 142 out of 146 countries. Helping women fight against the well-entrenched male-dominated cultural ethos so that they can undertake decisions about their reproductive health independently.
Although the population explosion is a crisis fast unfolding, it has assumed greater significance under newly crafted the National Security Policy (NSP), 2022. It has now, finally, been viewed as a policy imperative to deal with the non-traditional threats grappling Pakistan. Prioritizing the navigation of the population-development nexus with the goal of bringing about improved human development outcomes must be the part of political and development agenda.
About the Author:
Qaiser Rizwan Abbasi, a student of MS Economics, class of 2024. He is currently working as a Taxation officer at Sindh Revenue Board (SRB), where he also holds the portfolio of Social Media Manager. He is a freelance columnist who writes for various mainstream newspapers and magazines such as Dawn newspaper, Young World Dawn, Dunya News Blog, Pakistan Observer, Jahangir World Times magazine, and Nearpeer Magazine. Having vast expertise in formulating economic policies and enforcing tax administration, he has been engaged in writing a wide variety of articles and policy briefs on governance, public policy, social development, and economy.