Friday, July 15, 2016

End of One Child Policy in China

Isabelle Attané published report titled The end of One Child per Family in China in in the issue of Population & Societies , No. 535 , July August 2016, INED.
She provided a comprehensive analysis of one child policy in china.  China was able to reduce fertility rate but at  the same time this policy has a long lasting effects on the demographic profile of China . This policy resulted into the disturbed sex ratio, increasing abortion and socio-pyscho effects on the chinese society.

Monday, June 27, 2016

Infant Mortality Rate in India failed to achieve Millennium Development Goals

Mostly developing countries including Pakistan and India , failed to achieve Millennium  Development Goals . The Hindu pointed out that India did not able to reduce Infant Mortality Rate according to the target set by MDGs . (Infant mortality rate: Target set by Millennium Development Goals not met)
Talking to the Hindu , Thomas Chandy, CEO -"Save the Children " pointed out that services are not reaching to marginalized sections of society whereas Purnima Menon -Senior Research Fellow in IFPRI’s Poverty, Health and Nutrition Division related it poor nutrition. 
I am agreed with both of them but i want to  point out some inter-related factors responsible for high infant Mortality rate in India.

Saturday, April 9, 2016

Urban Transition in Pakistan



Urbanization is not a new story in Pakistan. Six to eight million Muslims crossed the new border and entered into Pakistan during partition in 1947 and majority of them settled in the cities of eastern Pakistani provinces of Sindh and Punjab. The second big migration flow towards cities occurred in 1965 and 1971 during the wars between India and Pakistan. In the 1990s, the anti-soviet insurgency resulted into further migration to the urban centers. Four million Afghans crossed Durand line (border between Pakistan and Afghanistan) and arrived in the North-Western Pakistan (Khyber Pakhtwankhawa) in 1992. In the beginning, they resided in the border refugee camps, Pakistan government forbade Afghans to cultivate land due to already existing economic struggle in these rural areas and the consequence was that they settled in the city of Peshawar and Quetta (Kugelman, 2013). After 9/11 incidence in 2001, Pakistan emerged as a front line state in war against terrorism.

Demographic Transition in Pakistan




It is often said that Islam is the fastest- growing religion in the world. This statement is true because of the pace of demographic transition in the Muslim-majority countries relative to the rest of world. Middle east and North Africa (MENA) region, the largest concentration of Muslim population (Above 90%), experienced rapid mortality decline during the second half of the 20th century whereas fertility rate remained high and population growth reached to its peak of 3.0 % per year in 1980’s but at the same time the growth rate for the world reached its peak of 2.0 % annual growth rate more than a decade earlier. Iran, Lebanon, Tunisia and Turkey have completed their demographic transition and their total fertility rate (TFR)  reached below 2.1 (replacement level) but at the same time their population is continued to increase in the coming decades due to young age structure owing to high fertility in the past. The speed of population growth will be faster in countries that are in the early or middle stages of demographic transition. TFR of Pakistan (3.6) is the second highest after Nigeria (TFR=5.9) in the top ten largest Muslim populations. It is difficult to predict the pace of demographic transition of a country and Iran surprised the world through dropping its TFR from 5.6 in 1985 to 2.0 in 2000- the fastest decline in the world (Fahimi, May et al. 2013 ).Pakistan is lagging in successful completion of demographic transition due to the influence of religion, male dominated society and family system.  (Mahmood 2014)

Pakistan has a unique position in the demographic transition. Pakistan has passed rapidly the first stage of the demographic transition with the transfer of advanced medical facilities from the advanced countries whereas Pakistan is lagging in passing through the second stage of demographic transition and is still in the early phase of second stage in which birth rate begins to decline.