There seems to be a lot of concern going over the recent projections of how quickly Pakistan’s population is growing. Pakistan – the sixth largest nation in the world – is about to hit a quarter of a billion people in population some time later this year or early next year.
Most people would think of this as a problem. Policymakers included regularly say we have too many children and that our population is growing too fast. And as this paper’s sister publication, Profit, tried pointing out this week, that population growth is an asset not a liability as your Pakistan Studies textbooks have tried to convince you.
As the feature points out, Pakistan’s population was historically a problem because there was a period of about 75 years when we were having more children than needed, but this was entirely due to a decline in infant mortality that most people did not see coming. Pakistani families are now having fewer children, so the “too many children” problem is basically over, and we will now see an increase in the labour force participation rate from now until some time in the 2090s, based on current trends.
The single factor that made Pakistan’s demographic composition a problem – its fertility rate, or the average number of children born per adult woman in the country – is now about to hit the sweet spot that will allow the country to reap what economists called the double demographic dividend. We used to think of our population as a liability. In reality, it was a long-term investment that is about to start paying dividends.
There are still problems. This happy circumstance can rapidly turn into a nightmare as other countries have learnt the hard way. We should take advantage of being behind them, and avoid the mistake of not being grateful for the youth of our population, and seek to keep that healthier age structure of the population going for as long as possible.
