Pakistan has been ranked as the six most populated country in the world. Its population has reached 207.8 million and it's thriving at the rate of 2.4 percent therefore, within few years it could catch Brazil which has a 211.2 million population.
If we compare the population growth rate of Pakistan with other South Asian countries or Muslim countries then it shows that the population growth rate in Pakistan is surpassing fastly at a rate of 2.4 percent than our neighbors. According to WDI, Bangladesh and India have a sustainably low population growth rate of 1.4 percent from 1988 to 2016 and also large Muslim countries like Indonesia have a growth rate of 1.3 percent.
Pakistan has failed to control the high pace of population growth rate. Besides they are not distant from the ‘’Malthusian population trap’’, according to this, rate of population growth is upsurging with geometric mean but the supply of food is surpassing with arithmetic mean. So, eventually, there will be no enough food to eat. Same as in the case of Pakistan between 1981 to 1988, food production per capita soared by 1.5 percent per annum but the population rate grew at the rate of nearly 2.7 percent. Also, from 1988 to 2016 food production thrived by minus 0.3 percent, and the population rate surpassed by 2.4 percent.
So, the higher population cue that Pakistan is now facing grave water-stressed. Due to the stalwart Urbanization process, the cultivated land has been toppled especially at the periphery of cities like Lahore. Besides due to the upsurge pace of population growth the income per capita is increasing wanly.
It is eloquently alarming for us, due to the high population growth rate cities are burgeoning fastly. According to the population census 2017, the annual growth rate of the population in Lahore from 1998 to 2017 was 4.06 percent. This led to many of the pitfalls in Lahore like water shortage, sewerage issue and it is also considered as the top ten most polluted cities in the world. In addition, due to overpopulation in Karachi million tons of plastics are directly thrown into the sea which not only ravaged human life but also depredations marine life. Same as due to soaring migration in Skardu city from the neighbor rural areas a palpable reduction in cultivated lands and huge deforestation etc can be seen.
It has an immense impact on schooling especially in the case of developing countries like Pakistan. According to the data on out-of-school children published by UNICEF in December, almost 61 percent of children from poorer households are out of school. This leads to a potent unskilled labor force who are not able to compete with veteran laborers in the market so that they become a huge burden to the whole economy which spends meager expenditure on education.
If the rate of thriving population growth remains tantamount prior to 2050 the population of Pakistan will be doubled and our next generations will be born in an area of water shortage, pollution, and high temperature.
On the other hand, there is an argument that population growth is desirable not a problem, they argue that the more population means the more labor force which is one of the most mandatory factors of production. They elucidate that due to ample labor supply the wages rate will be wane which leads to the economy of scale and the corollary will be in the form of growth and development. It can be true in the case of high spending on human capital which in turn will help to increase productivity through veteran labor.
It’s very important to control the increasing pace of population rate before its devastating effect otherwise it could collapse our crippling and crawling economy. Bangladesh devised a community-based approach to population planning. They started to educate illiterate village women regarding health and family planning and also dispensed contraception pills and condoms. They also gave equal and compulsory education to girls so that in the future they could control their lives and more aware of the increasing population. In the 1980s, The Supreme Leader of Iran issued a fatwa regarding family planning. He behests that contraception dispensed freely by government clinics. He also decrees health cares to create awareness among illiterate village women.
So serious steps should be taken by the government as well as through religious people. As we can unequivocally see that women in Punjab are more aware of the population explosion than women in Sindh and KP. So, a campaign of awareness is needed through social media, electronic and print media, siphoned regular seminars in rural areas etc which could help to paucity population growth. Besides, in Pakistan there is a huge number of youth so, through spending on human capital, we can use this force as a tool to confront other issues which we are facing due to high population growth.