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Population Time Bomb: Can it be avoided?

You should have added population density too as areas with less population density tend to have higher fertility rate
Population-Density-across-Provinces.png
 
Global Village Space |
Recently, a policy debate workshop was organized on population by a policy institute where my recommendations were not incorporated in the final draft. Hence, we sought to write about it independently to alert the world about the population time bomb in the South Asian region. While it is challenging to surmount this problem, it is certainly possible.

We compared Bangladesh and Pakistan’s growth rates, 1 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively, to see the effectiveness of population control policies. But before venturing into the policy matters, are there any measures as to what may be a good population size that can adequately hang in the balance?

The dictionary definition of a ‘balanced population’ is “Natural population in a particular land area or body of water that maintains itself year after year with a little fluctuation in the number of individuals despite regular fishing and hunting.” In the light of this, how have several ecological communities fared? The human population has exponentially grown to a point where the biophysical limits of the globe are threatened.

Perhaps animals deserve this planet more than we do because they are disappearing at the expense of us humans. Animals dwell within nature, but humans have increasingly dwelt outside of nature. This notion directly opposes the modernism-inspired knowledge, which insists that there is no such thing as nature; rather, a mechanical universe is composed of dead matter, which can be dominated at will and used to our advantage. There is nothing sacred about nature intrinsically. The former view looks at nature as a wife from which one benefits and towards whom one has responsibility. The latter view looks at the world of nature as a prostitute, from which one benefits but has no responsibility. This means that the spirituality of nature must be respected to coexist with nature rather than dominating nature irresponsibly.

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Population Time Bomb: Can it be avoided?

Your solution sounds good but it's not practical.
Even china according to recent census has stopped growing, and are All wing for 2/3 children.
Maybe yours could be a solution if you would adopt a middle ground regarding having kids.
 
Our main problem is not having enough cities to evenly spread the population and have less per sqkm. Our few big urban centers have population more than they can sustain, Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar and even small cities as well.

People living in rural areas still have enough land to not make it look congested ugly place.

It's not an argument of aesthetics but more about human development and facing the consequences of not doing so. I've lived half my life in villages* and the cultivable land I see today is easily less than half of what it was in my childhood. Smaller villages have become larger, larger villages have become Towns and larger towns have become small cities and so on.

They are over a billion plus with serious gender disparity. It is not them but their desire for sons with little nunniz that is keeping the nos. low for the time being. They have same issue ........ few cities with huge population (compared to their total area).

It seems you just spoke out of your embedded rhetorical instinct rather than any knowledge of modern day India. If you're suggesting its female feticide or gender selection at conception leading to lower population growth rate, it couldn't be far from the truth.
India's population growth is a well researched & documented area. Read about it. India has urbanized at a breathtaking pace with huge cities sprawling up as tech hubs. More than 20 large cities have birth rates below the population replacement rate. There are many reasons.
  • Urban centers, especially tech hubs, much like western cities are extremely modern, offer great life style and consequently expensive. If the wife leaves her job to raise a kid any longer than short term, it becomes extremely difficult to afford life in these urban centers.
  • An additional child doesn't just mean one spouse leaves job to tend to the kid but also means additional expense.
  • Many of these young people start out independently as couples with parents living back in their native cities/towns/villages and hence there is very little daily pressure to continue the tradition of procreation. This phenomenon is less documented but after having worked with countless Indians from the tech industry, I firmly believe this only helps reduce pressure to have children for Indians.
Indian youth sees the benefits of lower population and reaps too. Pakistan is headed in that direction somewhat but hasn't reached that critical mix of urbanization and individual freedom, for the benefits to start impacting the population significantly. That said, just do a rough calculation.
Count the grand children any people from your grand parents' generation have, and compare it to grand parents of your parents' generation. It's easy to see the trend.

These are just future predictions, let me share an experience with you, after few years women won't be able to give birth to too many children, it has already started, after two the women will start experiencing high bp and complications, call it whatever, but we may see a rise in fatalities while giving birth.
What are you basing this experience out of, there is so much missing here. Are you a medical researcher? a gynecologist? a health worker? are you even a dude ... Only a female should be able to speak so confidently about female reproductive health other than an actual medical researcher on Pakistani female reproduction.

Population control isn’t a solution.
Set up new self sufficient cities in Pakistan. Balochistan despite being 44% of Pakistan has a smaller population then Lahore. Set up many small cities in Pakistan with urban gardens (vertical farms to grow vegetables) to grow food, manage resources properly, build more dams, build desalination plants (Saudi is experimenting with new desalination technologies for its neom city which will be super cheap), put solar panels on every home in the villages.
Population control (haram in islam) might give us short term benefits but it’ll destroy our country in the long term look at China and learn from their mistakes.
If anything China has proven that even with strict population control, you can grow at breakneck speed. Not that I endorse their model or believe that the 1 child policy was implemented a 100%, but if anything, China isn't a case you should cite.
We are 220 million so called Muslims drowned in "Soodi Qarza" interest based debt which per Islam is a war against Allah. What is more haram than creating millions of more kids and forcing them in a war against Allah from birth? My point isn't religious, its to tell you to stop using religion where it suits you.
Also, Balochistan has a lot of depravity already that we haven't resolved in 70+ years, let us do that first before we even ask them to consider allowing more cities to fill with outsiders.

Stick to UK. The island cannot sustain any no go areas anymore and more people need to be employed ever more to afford a single pensioner.
Pakistan doesn't face population problem but infrastructure problem.

Pakistan already well past the population level to reap all economies of scale benefits in virtually all fields. We passed that decades back, we can probably introduce more problems by increasing our population, but we clearly have no visible benefit of increasing our population more and no having more kids to afford more pension to aging population isn't a benefit, its a self defeating cycle with a finite and devastating end.
awam se government control nahi horahi birth control kese karen
Kese bhi karen, kyun k agar aj control nahi ho rahi tu aur barhne k baad bilkul nahi ho gi

Kick out the after 71 Bangalis as Bangladesh is now modern day south Korea
and Afghanis will never go and keep reproducing
They're in every district, town of Pakistan
You can't get rid of them...
Last generation f-ed us with ummah brotherhood stuff...
Let's not go into our treatment of Bengalis that led to their independence. These people in Pakistan fought for us often not knowing the greater racist plan. Instead of kicking them out, we should apologize to them for uprooting them from their homeland for our selfish designs, give them respect they deserve and own up to our mistakes and that of our ancestors. Two wrongs don't make one right!
Also, Afghanis were helped in by another Pakistani dictator so let's fix ourselves first and then educate the people already here. The same Afghanis make some of the best athletes, doctors, scientists and professionals world over when educated. Stop with your racism.

The Jews learnt this lesson early on and focused on providing the best possible upbringing to a limited number of children instead of breeding like rats, this despite going through a genocide. Look at them now, they number around 1/100th of the Muslims yet command 100 times more power and influence thanks to education and resultant economic and political success.
Israel is less than 1/20th of Pakistan's population, less than 1/10th the area and that too almost entirely desert with no agriculture. Yet its exports reached over $130 billion in 2021 compared to under 30 billion. Exports per capita are well over a 100 times compared to that of Pakistan.

Ride the wave!

Population levels are peaking around the world and it "will" be shaped by who're actually around and "NOT" those on the higher pedestal rods of steel in their neck... feigning progress!

Eventually, Africa the youngest continent "will" be on the driving seat barring another genocide.

See the attached image. Most countries at the top of the population growth rate chart are African and have been for a while. You can keep championing the cause of replicating like bunnies is a better approach to human development rather than reproducing like the most intelligent creature known to exist in the universe today.

Its a myth. Pakistan population growth is in constant decline if we remove afghani factor. Its the reason why pashtuns now make up 18% of population when in 1951 they did 9%. While rest of ethnic groups declined.
Once you take care of afghani migration, Pakistan population too will start to decline. There is no point worrying about too many people. Think of them as opportunity as rest of the developed enter population decline era.
@Imran Khan sir ji.... in the 90s we have a massive influx of immigrants in Pakistan. Afghans, Bangalies (over 200 settlements in Karachi) etc etc ... Afghan reproduction is much higher than average Pak,, same to Bangala population in Karachi .. Check the demographics ... our refugee policy during the Afgan war was killer...bechari aurtan .. what a massive abuse.
It is not too different from extremists in India saying Muslims reproduce more than Hindus for 'population jihad'.
You defeat your own argument. If population is an opportunity, use the influx of Afghanis to benefit Pakistan and not to expose your inner racist insecure self. Look at the attached file representing the highest population growth rate per latest data. If you know anything about the world, you won't take a second to realize these countries are invariably among the poorest nations in the world. There is no literature or even circumstantial evidence to prove that countries as large as Pakistan can benefit from increasing population.
Its a sad irony that you'd proudly call yourself a citizen of "Islamic Republic of Pakistan", yet be a racist against brethren Muslims and consider them outsiders. You'd hate on KSA and UAE not offering citizenship to Pakistanis and other poorer Muslims, yet you'd happily champion the same sick approach in Pakistan.

West Pakistan became a province in Pakistan.
East Punjab became a province in India which was later on divided into 2 states Punjab and Haryana. Punjab's population is 28 million while Haryana's population in 25 million. Together, their population is 53 million.
You are right about Punjab splitting but fun fact, Sikhs constitute a majority of Indian Punjab's population and per the latest data, Sikh women have the lowest child birth rate among major ethno-religious groups at 1.6 per woman.
 

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It's not an argument of aesthetics but more about human development and facing the consequences of not doing so. To directly address village situation, I've lived half my life in a village and the cultivable land today is less than half of what it was in my childhood. Smaller villages have become larger, larger villages have become Towns and larger towns have become small cities and so on.



It seems you just spoke out of your embedded rhetorical instinct rather than any knowledge of modern day India. If you're suggesting its female feticide or gender selection at conception leading to lower population growth rate, it couldn't be far from the truth.
India's population growth rate decline is a well researched and documented area. Read about it. India has urbanized at a breathtaking pace with huge cities sprawling up as tech hubs. Some of these and other cities (more than 20 in total) have birth rates even below the population replacement rate. There are many reasons.
  • Urban centers, especially tech hubs, much like western cities are extremely modern, offer great life style and consequently expensive. If the wife leaves her job to raise a kid any longer than short term, it becomes extremely difficult to afford life in these urban centers.
  • An additional child doesn't just mean one spouse leaves job to tend to the kid but also means additional expense.
  • Many of these young people start out independently as couples with parents living back in their native cities/towns/villages and hence there is very little daily pressure to continue the tradition of procreation. This phenomenon is less documented but after having worked with countless Indians from the tech industry, I firmly believe this only helps reduce pressure to have children for Indians.
All in all, Indians see the benefits of lower population and reap them too. Pakistanis largely haven't reached that critical mix of urbanization, tech hubs and individual freedoms.

What are you basing this experience out of, there is so much missing here. Are you a medical researcher? a gynaecologist? a lady health worker? heck are you even a dude ...
Only a female should be able to speak so confidently about female reproductive health other than an actual medical researcher on Pakistani female reproduction


Look at China? If anything China has proven that even with strict population control, you can grow at breakneck speed. Not that I endorse their model or believe that the 1 child policy was implemented a 100%, but if anything, China isn't a case you should cite.
We are 220 million so called Muslims drowned in "Soodi Qarza" interest based debt which per Islam is a war against Allah. What is more haram than creating millions of more kids and forcing them in a war against Allah from birth? My point isn't religious, its to tell you to stop using religion where it suits you.
Also, Balochistan has a lot of depravity already that we haven't resolved in 70+ years, let us do that first before we even ask them to consider allowing more cities to fill with outsiders.



Pakistan already well past the population level to reap all economies of scale benefits in virtually all fields. We passed that decades back, we can probably introduce more problems by increasing our population, but we clearly have no visible benefit of increasing our population more and no having more kids to afford more pension to aging population isn't a benefit, its a self defeating cycle with a finite and devastating end.












It is not too different from extremists in India saying Muslims reproduce more than Hindus for 'population jihad'.
You defeat your own argument. If population is an opportunity, use the influx of Afghanis to benefit other than use them to expose your inner racist insecure self. Look at the attached file representing the highest population growth rate per latest data. If you know anything about the world, you won't take a second to realize these countries are invariably among the poorest nations in the world. There is no literature or even circumstantial evidence to prove that countries as large as Pakistan can benefit from increasing population.
Its a sad irony that you'd proudly call yourself a citizen of "Islamic Republic of Pakistan", yet be a racist against brethren Muslims and consider them outsiders. You'd hate on KSA and UAE not offering citizenship to Pakistanis and other poorer Muslims, yet you'd happily champion the same sick approach in Pakistan.



You are right about Punjab splitting but fun fact, Sikhs constitute a majority of Indian Punjab's population and per the latest data, Sikh women have the lowest child birth rate among major ethno-religious groups at 1.6 per woman.

exposed 😁🌝

Alright can we atleast kick out after 71 Bangalis and maybe swap with Biharis stuck in Bangladesh
This is the least we can do? or even here we need to show ummah solidarity?
It's adding too much strain on already overpopulated Urban center
 
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View attachment 811232
exposed 😁🌝

Alright can we atleast kick out after 71 Bangalis and maybe swap with Biharis stuck in Bangladesh
This is the least we can do? or even here we need to show ummah solidarity?
It's adding too much strain on already overpopulated Urban center
Your meme doesn't match your text. For argument sake, Pakistan's population isn't fiscally self sustaining even if you take Bengalis + Afghans out times two and keep their wealth as loot. Bengali population isn't taking the best jobs because we didn't really treat them as equals or educate them, there is no data to suggest an excessive amount of state expenditure is going towards them or Afghans. What do you base this argument on? What city that doesn't contain Afghans or Bengalis has suddenly become the new Silicon Valley just because?!
 
Kese bhi karen, kyun k agar aj control nahi ho rahi tu aur barhne k baad bilkul nahi ho gi

none of the data can be trusted. most citizens themselves don't trust the census numbers released.
 
New census ho rhi ha. Karachi walay is bar result accept kar lain ga?

Karachi wale this that. Don't people who call the city to be from their country garner no interest for this? So all of a sudden if there is 10 percent increase or decrease in population, there reaction would be meh! despite being directly or indirectly affected by the change?

There are millions of undocumented families in the city, lest accounted for, they have no chance to live a normal life.
 
No, It's the single biggest crisis our country faces. In 30 years time we will have 50% more people. For every 2 people in Pakistan today, there will be 3.

Where is the extra food, where is the extra water, where are the extra jobs, the extra homes, the extra schools, colleges, universities, hospitals?!

It is not unsunstainable, but it is if the next 30 years go like the last 30 years.

Also we need a 2 child policy for 50 years. If the growth rate continues what happens when 300m turn into 500m? We'll be walking around in our own sh!t like them across the border.

Completely disagree. This question was raised by someone else in the past and I have given detail answer.
 
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Build high density housing and invest in vertical farming. I'm not really worried about population growth. The average fertility rate in Pakistan is 3.56 which is pretty good. Like Elon Musk said, we need to be more worried about population collapse than explosion.
 
Unplanned villages and towns is a headache for Pakistan. Pakistan instead need to come up with standardised towns comprising 30 sq.km each ( 6 km X 5 km) while having 150,000 population with a population density of 5000 atleast. This way we avoid creation of more unplanned villages and town which reduces our future headaches, it also concentrates relatively larger population in a small areas, as well as this can finally bring the apartment culture to Pakistan on a large scale. This also improve availability of public space and parks in towns which currently is non existent in our towns. We can easily multiply these town in different locations. Like take example of KSA new city " The line). Now imagine you have these towns (, 10 km apart) on Gawadar to Karachi route . Thats almost 40 town containing 6 million population. This can also prove vital in increasing ( more like shifting demographics) of Baluchistan by shifting more population towards Baluchistan ( 5-10 millions atleast from highly populated zones of other parts of Pakistan. ).

I agree. We need to develop coastal towns and cities.
I think People can be moved from different places to establish these towns and future cities.

1643232070378.png


Planning is the most important part of the management. We need to build suburbs and satellite cites with road/highway network and robust transportation system.

We need to hire European consultants for urban planning.
Best planned city with Parks, entertainment district, malls, museum district, sports city, IT city, commercial district, financial district, uptown, downtown, suburbs.

transportation system: Buses, monorail (downtown), metroRail (Intracity), bullettrain (interCity)

In urban planning everything has to be zoned properly, residential (houses, flats, high rise buildings), commercial, religious, industrial, etc.

No car older than year 2001 on the street (This could be implemented by city ordinance).
Cars registration (every 2 years), inspection and emissions testing (Should be managed by district).
Infrastructure setup for electric cars.

Security: City police, rapid reaction force/SWAT, robots, street cameras, drone for monitoring traffic and prevent crimes.

Proper system setup for Clean water, Gray water, black water, industrial waste water, proper rain water drainage system, water reservoirs with floating gardens, garbage pickup and processing plants, Turn garbage to energy.

Education: Top schools, college, technical/vocational colleges, universities.
Rainwater drainage system
Water treatment plants
 
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lol. No i mean the oral contraceptive pill.

I knew what you meant but if the Pakistani government announced free contraceptive pills for women then there would be riots.

We still haven't eradicated polio, and polio health workers have been murdered because the mullahs say the polio vaccine is a Western conspiracy to make Muslims infertile.

Free contraceptive pills don't stand a chance.
 
I knew what you meant but if the Pakistani government announced free contraceptive pills for women then there would be riots.

We still haven't eradicated polio, and polio health workers have been murdered because the mullahs say the polio vaccine is a Western conspiracy to make Muslims infertile.

Free contraceptive pills don't stand a chance.

Give people some credit. Very little but some. Contraceptives cost money and condoms affect the sensation of intercourse (somewhat).

The pill if free would let people enjoy thier marital relations as they are used to - without a new mouth to feed. Plenty of women with money already take it.

Who asks the mullah? Those without a woman.
 
Give people some credit. Very little but some. Contraceptives cost money and condoms affect the sensation of intercourse (somewhat).

The pill if free would let people enjoy thier marital relations as they are used to - without a new mouth to feed. Plenty of women with money already take it.

Who asks the mullah? Those without a woman.
I'm all for it but I don't think affordability is the whole story.
Edit @313ghazi.
I don't really want to keep pushing the point but I've had a quick Google for how much the contraceptive pill costs in Pakistan.
There are some more expensive ones but you can buy a months supply for as little as 28Rs, that must be less than a bottle of Pepsi. But the most telling fact was that with every price was the stipulation that a prescription is required to make a purchase. That is a massive stumbling block to universal contraception in a conservative / religious / judgemental society like Pakistan.
 
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