Head to any educational institution in Bangladesh, and you will find students scurrying for seats -- approximately 125 centres of higher learning in Bangladesh were entrusted with the matriculation of 885,070 high-school graduates in 2014 alone. The capital city Dhaka is home to about 15.9 million impoverished people, who -- owing to their poverty -- are prone to taking criminal measures to satisfy their basic needs.
The significance of a growing population cannot, and should not, be undermined. The United States boasts the highest nominal GDP in the world and holds the 10th position to have the highest GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita. Declining and ageing populations are major concerns for any country that wants to perform well on the economic frontier.
Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of Singapore, notes in his article for Forbes Magazine: “To have babies is, of course, a personal decision, but for a nation’s population that decision carries considerable consequences.” In that same article, he delineates the situation of Singapore, a country that is witnessing a steady decline in its population. He concludes with a list of measures taken by Singapore’s government to encourage mothers to bear not one, not two, but “three or four -- or more -- children.”
One cannot turn away from the fact that Pakistan, despite being the sixth most populous country in the world, is 46th among countries with the highest nominal GDP in the world and 135th among countries with the highest GDP at PPP per capita in the world, or that the Environmental Performance Index 2014 (produced by Yale University and Columbia University) places Bangladesh ninth among 178 countries with the worst air quality in the world.
Jubilant experts coin fancy theories, much to the dismay of an ordinary woman who cannot walk from points A to C without being elbowed by fellow pedestrians in overcrowded cities. However, the key is indeed in population management; not population.
The “replacement rate” (reproduction rate that keeps a population stable) for developed nations is 2.1. The United States is an exemplary nation that seems to have grasped and implemented the concept of population management thoroughly.
It has maintained its population close to the replacement rate at 2, and is therefore not ageing as fast as many other countries. It is disposed to become, in LK Yuan’s words: “The slowly ageing leader of a rapidly ageing world.”
Let us now turn our attention to India. Almost 66% of India’s population comprises of youths, making it the largest source of young people in the world. The median age is 27, compared to 37 in the US and 46 in Japan.
The consequences of an ageing population will be slower and less dramatic in India, given its government invests in education and training of young people without any discrimination. India’s case illustrates the concept of “demographic dividend.”
Bangladesh presents a unique, paradoxical story.
On one hand, the median age in Bangladesh as of 2010 is 24 -- even lower than that of India. Simply put, Bangladesh has a demographic advantage. This alone could make many leaders beam with joy at the prospect of witnessing youth-fuelled economic prosperity.
On the other hand, there are differing reports with regards to the country’s replacement rate. It is estimated at 2.45 as of 2014 by the CIA. The World Bank puts the rate of Bangladesh at 2.2 as of 2012. In either case, the rate is higher than desired for a nation that has still retained the LDC status since 1975 -- only four years into the country’s inception.
With such a backdrop, it is pragmatic for leaders in Bangladesh to advocate for a small family until the replacement rate becomes well-suited for a developing country. Simultaneously, the leaders of this country -- which is the 14th most corrupt in the world as of 2014 (Transparency International, 2014) -- must invest in education, training, and infrastructure development to utilise the demographic advantage to its fullest, so that there is room for everyone without the need for nudging.
Additionally, world leaders need to appeal for structured, gender-sensitive sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) education in the national curriculum. This is necessary to prevent a population mismanagement arising out of unwanted pregnancies and violation of SRHR.
Young people who want to learn more about sexuality and intimacy often fall prey to unstructured sources, such as pornographic materials, which do not elucidate on rights, choices, and population implications.
Furthermore, world leaders need to recognise adoption as a plausible means of replacement migration/integration, and to remove social, legal, and religious barriers for infertile couples who want to adopt.
It is important for world leaders to chalk out population management strategies based on each country’s unique demography -- there is no one-size-fits-all prescription. The population of each country needs to be managed effectively to make the best use of human potential, before the population spirals out of control towards an unwanted direction -- be it declining, ageing, booming, or idling. Failing to do that, humans will die, not of plagues and wars, but of an uncontrolled population.
