Pakistan has the potential to benefit from demographic dividend which can fuel its economic growth for the next fifty years, official sources said. According to official sources, at the time of independence in 1947, Pakistan's population was 32.5 million.
"By 2006-07, the population is estimated to have reached 158.2 million, thus in roughly two generations, Pakistan's population has increased by 125.7 million or has grown at an average rate of 2.7 percent per annum."
Pakistan has more mouths to feed, more families to house, more children to educate, and more people looking for gainful employment with millions migrating from the countryside to major cities in search of jobs and raising pressure on urban infrastructure, they added.
This large population, they said on the other hand also represents a big opportunity for Pakistan to benefit from demographic dividend which could fuel Pakistan's economic growth for the next fifty years.
Pakistan, they said is witnessing changes in the age structure of the population with proportion of working age population increasing and offering a window of opportunity to turn this demographic transition into a demographic dividend.
They explained that demographic dividend is defined as transition from a largely rural agrarian society with high fertility and mortality rates to a predominantly urban industrial society with low fertility and mortality rates". Although demographic transition consists of three phases but In The Case Of Pakistan, two phases are crucial, they added.
The third phase is relevant for the countries suffering from the issues of ageing population. These phases, they said result from the lag between changes in fertility and mortality. At an early stage of this transition (phase one), the fertility and mortality rates are high, resulting in the decline of the share of working age population and creating bulge in the young age groups, they remarked.
In other words, the share of dependent population is higher, freeing less resource for investment and growth. During the second phase, fertility rates decline, leading to fewer younger mouths to feed. On the other hand, the population bulge enters and stays in the working age.
The working age population grows more rapidly than the population dependent on it, freeing up resources for investment and economic growth. Other things being equal, per capita income grows more rapidly, making more income available for dependants. Accordingly, the welfare of the family improves.
This dividend period is quite long and lasts five decades or more, they remarked. They said that during the first phase when fertility rates were higher the share of young age (0-14 years) population continued to rise thereby creating a bulge in the young age population while the share of working age (15-59) continued to decline until 1972.
Pakistan appears to have entered the second phase of demographic transition from 1981 onward, they remarked. As a result of decline in fertility rate from 6.0 percent to 3.8 percent during 1981 and until 2006, the share of working age (15-59 years) population continued to rise from 48.5 percent to 57.2 percent and accordingly the share of young age (0-14) continued to exhibit declining trend (from 44.5 percent to 36.8 percent). Thus, Pakistan is currently passing through the demographic transition phase during which, this transition can be converted into a demographic dividend.