Articles

History of demographic processes in Pakistan

Vostok/Oriens '2018, №3

DOI: 10.31857/S086919080000051-3

 
The article analyzes demographic processes in Pakistan throughout its history from 1947 up to 2017. The author focuses on the considerable growth of the country's population, first of all after Pakistan disintegration in 1971. The article examines preliminary results of the last Population Census conducted in 2017, with the accent on a significant underestimation of the country's population after the Pakistan Population Census 1998. Average annual population growth rates are calculated separately for decades and they were not less than 2.4% on average. The demographic forecast indicates a real danger of further significant growth of Pakistan population in the medium and long term. That growth, in turn, may lead to food shortage. The main reasons for the rapid growth of the population of Pakistan are an extremely poor implementation of the Family Planning Programme and Muslim traditions that impede widespread use of contraceptives. The author analyzes the employment in Pakistan and shows a clear discrepancy between the contribution of agriculture in GDP (20% in the second decade of the twenty first century) and the share of employed in agriculture that engages 42 percent of labour force. A comparatively high level of unemployment and underemployment exceeding 10 percent on average in the beginning of the twenty first century remains a strong challenge, although official data shows unemployment in Pakistan at the level of 4 percent. The author also treats migration processes, the first wave after the disintegration of British India in 1947 and the second wave of emigration starting from the first half of the 1970s, to Muslim oil-producing countries. Currently, there are at least 9 millions overseas Pakistanis working around the globe and sending remittances of about 20 billion US$ to Pakistan annually, which is almost equal to export earnings.

Keywords: Pakistan, population, Census, agriculture, employment, migration, remittances

Pages: С. 133–147