I. Describe the current state of the Demographic Transition of Pakistan (which stage are we in and why?). Relate the demographic transition with the Population Pyramid of Pakistan. Also, comm

Answer:

Pakistan is a country with a population of 207 million people and a growth rate of 2.4%. Keeping absolute numbers aside, a more profound investigate the segment structure of the populace implies an expected financial test of a remarkable scale. Currently, the population pyramid depicts an age structure with an augmenting dependency ratio in the presence of low income per capita. Pakistan is one of the youngest countries in the world, with more than 60% of the population under 30 with many needing jobs. Without the right government approach, this youth bulge is a ticking time bomb that can explode through spiralling incidents of wide scale impoverishment and social unrest. While a large youth cohort can be an asset as a young workforce and as a precursor to increased aggregate demand, lack of adequate employment opportunities along with low capital development can convert this economic boon into a bane.

United Nations World Population Prospects (2019) projects that Pakistan’s population  may reach 340 million by 2050 and 400 million by the end of the century. Several experts such as Population Council’s country director, Zeba Sathar, highlight how excessive demand stemming from unrestrained population growth can outpace the supply of essential resources in a major way. In that sense it shows the manifestation of the Malthusian pessimism in Pakistan.

Reducing fertility

The demographic transition — a change from high to low rates of mortality and fertility – strongly influences the trajectory of economic development. In the experience of developed countries in the West and East Asia, a decline in the fertility rate has been the catalyst for balancing out their demographic structure to maximise the working age segment and attain more evenly spread out economic benefits or in other words capture the demographic dividend. However, a missed opportunity can lead to a demographic disaster if the unemployed working age population become ‘forced dependents’ – a probable scenario for Pakistan.

A decline in mortality rate, ensuing from the advent of standard medical technologies and health investments in the country, is always followed by a decline in fertility rate. Even after mortality rates fall, the lag in reducing fertility rates can often range from 50 to 150 years as experienced in some countries. The reason for the longer transition from low mortality to low fertility rates have to do with endogenous factors including government-supported family planning, as well as the overall economic development of the country – without creation of jobs, the incentive to switch from having more children to supplying one’s labour in the economy is lost. Ultimately, without reducing fertility, the likelihood of the working-age population to grow faster than a country’s dependent population is slim thereby sustaining constricted per capita productive capacity of the economy.