Keeping low growth rate key challenge

Already burdened with a large population, Bangladesh faces a huge challenge in arresting further growth as it observes World Population Day today. 

According to the Demographic Impact Study (DIS), the country's population might reach 265 million by 2061 from 156 million now.

The recent government study made the projection on the premise that the current fertility rate of 2.3 percent would remain static for the entire projection period. Bangladesh's population growth rate is now 1.37 percent.

The DIS report, prepared by the General Economics Division of Bangladesh Planning Commission, said the country's population density has reached 1,015 people per square kilometre, three and seven times higher than in India and China.

“Bangladesh is the only major country to have such a high population density while half of its labour force remains dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. Bangladesh's exceptionally high population density makes it a 'special case' among developing countries and places it at great risk of reaching saturation in terms of its ability to absorb further population growth,” read the study.

 Meanwhile, the United Nations Population Fund (Unfpa) said the demographic structure, particularly concerning young people between 15 and 24, will cause the population to reach 220 million by 2050, even if the replacement level fertility is met today.

 Replacement level fertility is the total fertility rate at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next, without migration.

The government and the development partners noted that adolescent girls with high rates of child marriage are contributing to the sharp rise in population.

Most recent statistics show that about 66 percent women in Bangladesh got married before they reached 18, the legal age for marriage. Besides, 33 percent girls start childbearing before turning 20.  

Adolescent fertility in Bangladesh is still one of the highest in the world, with 126 births per 1,000 women between the ages of 15-19. On a global average, the figure is about 50.26 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19.

According to Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey 2014, 31 percent of the girls/women of 15-19 years became pregnant in the first year of their marriage. Only 46.7 percent of them use birth control.

The DIS study pointed out that an estimated 26,000 people have been losing their land every year due to flooding and erosion. After losing land, they would either migrate to towns, cities and chars or to areas of land formed by flooding. Further increase in population would only intensify the pressure on land.

It said landlessness has increased from 20 percent in 1968 to an estimated 40 percent now. Another 39 percent of rural households have less than half an acre of land.

“These trends have made the family-based mode of production increasingly unviable. This in turn has implications for future population change because children are more likely to be a liability than an asset for the landless or urban poor households,” added the report.

While caste is no longer an important basis for social organisation, the distribution of wealth and income has become increasingly unequal since the 1990s.

The study found that although poverty has declined by most measures in recent decades, income inequality has worsened over the last two decades.