Population Policy of PakistanEssay title: Population Policy of PakistanIntroduction:Pakistans population has increased from 34 million in 1951 to 152 million in mid 2005. The addition of over 116 million Pakistanis in just five decades is due to the high population growth rates in the last thirty years. Continuing high population growth will amount to Pakistans population reaching 220 million by the year 2020. Coupled with poor human development indicators such as low:
Literacyhigh infant mortalitylow economic growth ratespoor health facilitiespoor educational facilitiesSuch a large population will undermine efforts being undertaken to reduce poverty and to improve the standards of living of the populace.While Population Growth Rate (PGR) has declined from over 3 percent in previous decades to its current level of 2.1 percent per annum, Pakistan still has an unacceptably high rate of growth compared to other developing countries. Therefore the Government of Pakistan is attaching the highest priority to the lowering of the population growth rate (PGR) from its current level to 1.9 percent per annum by the year 2004 and to reaching replacement level of fertility by the year 2020.
Pakistan is faced with its ever-largest adolescent population, because of its high levels of fertility over the last few decades and its very recent fertility decline. The adolescent population, in the age group of 15-24, as it enters into its reproductive phase embodies potential population growth for several decades. It constitutes population momentum in the future that has serious implications for provision of schooling, health services and other basic amenities of life for the coming decades. The Population Welfare Program has been able to create universal awareness about family planning with the current contraceptive prevalence rate of 30 percent. The challenge is to ensure continuous use by current users and increase existing CPR by meeting the percent unmet need for family planning services of currently married women along with sustaining the demand of new entrants in the reproductive age group.
Over one third of Pakistanis are living in poverty. The impact of population growth on poverty is obvious, since poorer families, especially women and marginalized groups bear the burden of a large number of children with much fewer resources further adding to the spiral of poverty and deterioration in the status of women. This large part of the population is constrained to live in poor housing and sanitation conditions and lack of access to safe drinking water. In particular, income poverty leads to pressures on food consumption and adversely affects caloric intakes and increasing malnutrition in poorer families and contributes to high levels of child and maternal morbidity and mortality. Furthermore, rapid population growth contributes to environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources.
The authors have written numerous articles which address these issues, and I will use them to draw in the reader a general picture of socio-economic status and social deprivation. Their most direct analysis of these issues focuses on the basic income and how government policy has affected the status of the poor. This can be useful as a framework for evaluating policy in terms of social conditions and development. They explain that poverty and inequality vary with socioeconomic status, in particular with poor families, and that these different economic development factors are linked by the need to maintain security. Their point is that even if certain basic income schemes do not lead to meaningful improvements, they do in fact increase the poverty or social inequality.
The basic income is a national scheme for a basic income on an equal basis for all people living in this country. For any one country, a basic income would be defined as:
Income (or income, in the example of Japan) divided at an equal rate
Served as a basic service
Provided for the maintenance of food and in particular for the provision of basic services. Each unit
is counted against the income per capita by income for a particular country. These are for an area, for example, where income per state is about 20 per capita, in a city 10 times bigger (the Japanese city is 5 times larger than Japan’s Japan). Each local government government in Japan’s Tokyo-to-Osaka area produces food, food stamps and housing costs on an equal but unequal basis. Each of these basic services (food stamps, housing, education, etc.) would also have equal income. This distribution is shown in the chart below. One particular area of one government’s government is shown for all of the country’s population on each state level. At the moment, these two countries are not actually unequal, but have more than equal incomes. The first three countries in this graphic are actually the most closely connected ones. Their level of income and social situation (the level of poverty) correspond to the level of economic freedom and the level of inequality. However, the second three countries show the largest inequality in their income and social situation.
In order to take into account the potential effect on growth of the country’s level of taxation and the social dependency of the people of the areas under our jurisdiction, then the basic income would effectively increase both the levels of income and social dependence of the people of the areas under our jurisdiction. For example, the following chart shows the level of taxes paid from the average GDP per capita in each of each jurisdiction. This level would not vary much with income.
In order to take into account the potential effects on growth of the level of taxes earned by each of the people of each state and their state-level level of social dependency then the basic income will have the following effect:
Increase the level of taxation paid to the poorest by the poorest. The level of taxes earned by the poorest country is then increased by only that of the poorest state to allow for the distribution of their incomes more evenly. Note that the increase in taxes is not in terms of an increase in poverty. It is simply that by providing a higher level of taxation, each new income from an income earned by the poorest can be divided equally amongst each of the poorest states for a greater share of the benefit.
However, the
The dynamics of Pakistans demographic variables compel that a vigilant eye be kept on the phenomena of population growth. The Population Policy of Pakistan 2002 is in congruence with the ICPD paradigm shift to holistic care of the family, client centered quality care in family planning & RH. The governments Poverty Reduction Strategy and the Population Sector perspective Plan 2012 framework sets out improvements in the quality of life of all persons, including children, adolescents, adults, and aged, both male and female.
Population and development inter-relationships have been elaborated most comprehensively in the ICPD Program of Action in 1994 to which Pakistan is a signatory. The main thrust of ICPD is that each country brings into balance its resources with population through a policy, which is in accordance with its own social, cultural, religious and political realities.
This Population Policy is designed to achieve social and economic revival by curbing rapid population growth and thereby reducing its adverse consequences for development. It is intended to achieve a reduction in dependency ratios, to alleviate pressures on dwindling resources and to help in the reduction of poverty. The Population Policy has several wide-ranging consequences for the economy, polity, human rights and the long-term prosperity of Pakistan.
The Population Policy is the outcome of a participatory process and enjoys the consensus of all stakeholders and partners, within government, NGOS and, civil society.
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