Lanka’s birth rates decline: economy the cause

World Population Day falls on July 11, and population is a vital issue in socio-economic and political affairs. Data given by the United Nations (UN) will help us analyse the situation. According to the UN, it took hundreds of thousands of years for the world population to grow to 1 billion–then in just another 200 years or so, it grew sevenfold. By 2011, the global population reached the 7 billion mark; it stood at almost 7.9 billion in 2021, and it’s expected to grow to around 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 billion by 2050, and 10.9 billion by 2100.
The UN attributes this dramatic growth largely to the increase in the number of people surviving to reproductive age, accompanied by changes in fertility rates, increasing urbanisation and accelerating migration. These trends will have far-reaching implications for generations to come, the UN deduces.

According to an article published in the Daily Mirror recently, the birth rate in Sri Lanka is on a rapid decline and has decreased by 30%. The article quotes a gynaecologist at the Kalubowila Teaching Hospital Prof. Ajith Fernando. Providing figures, the gynaecologist said that the number of births, which was about 360,000, has decreased to about 240,000.
The doctor attributed economic difficulties as the primary cause for the declining birth rates in the country. Many families are opting not to have a second child.
The gynaecologist goes on to state that as of late many newlywed couples seem to be putting off the idea of having children and prioritise earning more, leading them to delay starting a family. For them, having kids is not a priority on their list. Many are also migrating and aren’t considering returning to Sri Lanka. If this practice continues, after several years, Sri Lanka will face the same difficulties as developed countries like South Korea and China.
Some perceive low birth rates as a characteristic of developed countries, but what has happened in our country is not like in a developed country, the doctor is quoted saying.
The Sri Lankan Government needs to understand the importance of this issue for the overall benefit and welfare of the people and the generations to come, and give attention to it not only at times of elections. Ministers and State Ministers need to be in charge of issues related to population.
According to the UN, the recent past has seen enormous changes in fertility rates and life expectancy. In the early 1970s, women had on average 4.5 children each; however by 2015, the total fertility for the world had fallen to below 2.5 children per woman. Meanwhile, the average global life spans have risen, from 64.6 years in the early 1990s to 72.6 years by 2019.
Additionally, the world is seeing high levels of urbanisation and accelerating migration. The UN says that the year 2007 was the first year in which more people lived in urban areas than in rural areas, and it is estimated that by 2050 about 66 percent of the world population will be living in cities.

The UN says that to sustainably address the needs of individuals, policymakers must understand how many people are living on the planet, where they are, how old they are, and how many people will come after them.
According to Bill Gates, “The problem is that the population is growing the fastest where people are less able to deal with it. So it’s in the very poorest places that you’re going to have a tripling in population by 2050. And we’ve got to make sure that we help out with the tools now so that they don’t have an impossible situation later.”