In his inaugural address at an international seminar in Islamabad on Wednesday, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz lamented that our burgeoning population is a serious problem which nullifies the effects of the current high rate of economic growth.
"We do not want to be the country number one on the list of high population growth countries," he averred, "we want to be lower down the list." Unfortunately, however, Pakistan remains one of the most populous countries of the world, and at 1.9 percent its population growth rate is the region's highest.
The reason for this is not linked to religion, as some like to suggest, which is borne out clearly by the example of Muslim majority nation Bangladesh that has achieved significant success in controlling the size of its population. There being a well-recognised connection between education and lower birth rates, the Prime Minister pointed in the right direction when he termed increasing literacy, among both men and women, as the best way of controlling population.
In fact, over the years, the fertility rate in this country has been on a downward slide, which can be attributed to a gradual spread of education. At 1.9 percent, it is, of course, still very high compared to the figure of 1.7 percent for the other developing countries.
Yet it has come down from 3 percent between 1951 and the mid-'80s, to an average of 2.6 per annum in the years spanning the period between the mid-'80s and 1999-2000, and slipping further to 2 percent during 2000-01.
Regrettably, nonetheless, human development has never been the priority of our rulers. As a report issued by the State Bank last year revealed, only 1.7 percent of the GDP - the lowest percentage for the whole of South Asia - was being spent on education. And until not too long ago, that figure stood at less than one percent.
No wonder, ours is a particularly dismal situation with regard to population and other developmental indicators, and perpetuates the problems that hinder progress. Just as higher population growth tends to drag down economic growth, conversely, low spending on education, social awareness and empowerment arrests economic progress.
Clearly, the government has to give education and other areas of human development the priority that they deserve. Also, there is need to address the issue of gender bias, which creates a strong pressure on child bearing couples to prefer boys over girls.
Many people go on having children until a male child is born, thereby ending up with large families. Sad as it is, with the availability of modern equipment to determine the sex of an unborn baby, many do not hesitate to abort a female foetus.
The practice is not prevalent in this country alone; in fact anti-women prejudices being the strongest in India, the government there had to move in to curb the use of ultrasound technology for purposes that could lead to foeticide. A similar step is in order here, too.
Needless to say, though, the prejudices against women that are rooted in our semi-feudal culture will take time to go away. When more and more women receive education and occupy positions of power, they will have fewer children and also help erase the prejudices that compel people to prefer boys over girls.
In the meantime, the government must make substantial increases in its annual budgetary allocations to the education sector, provide birth control facilities as widely as possible, and run a well thought-out social awareness programme.