B A N G L A D E S H :
With an estimated population of 140 million and per capita income of $444, Bangladesh has the highest population density in the world (948/sq. km.). And with a current population growth rate of 2.022% (2008), Bangladesh could potentially double its population by 2043 (70/2.022% = 34.6 years). While many mitigating factors will prevent an expansion of that proportion, the detrimental effects are obvious nonetheless to a country slightly smaller than Iowa. Although poverty declined slightly during the last decade, more than 63 million people still continue to live below the poverty line. Bangladesh has a traditional agrarian economy and therefore depends on its younger population. The demographic structure, particularly the young people (about 40% of the population is between the ages of 15-24) will will create a population spike that will peak at around 250 million in 2085.
In the early 1990s, a series of very successful population control programs saw a 20% decline in fertility rate in Bangladesh. It had long been assumed that economic development was the best way for a poor country to reduce rampant population growth, however, the influence of family planning initiatives - including access to contraception - showed a marked effect on stabilizing the rapid growth. This data is particularly significant considering that Bangladesh is a Muslim country and traditionally unreceptive to most Western birth control practices.
Because roughly a quarter of the population consists of adolescents, most of the worst problems facing population growth and its control are social issues particular to teenagers. Statistics show that approximately half of women in Bangladesh are younger than 18 when they marry, and 58 percent of girls are impregnated before the age of 20. This interrupts their education and disrupts personal developments for the future. Early marriage and early first birth therefore go hand in hand. Consequently, adolescent fertility in Bangladesh is still one of the highest in the world, with 135 births per 1000 women below the age of 20. This has a direct impact on the country's total fertility rate.
Women constitute a majority of the poor and experience greater deprivation and vulnerability due to their subordinate position and low status in society that is in part due to the patriarchal value system. Women are largely involved in the informal sector and subsistence activities. Violence against women in forms of rape, assault, trafficking, and acid throwing due to dowry is prevalent. Women's participation at the policymaking level and politics is still very low. Few women hold high position in the Government and private sector. Gender-based violence in the country aggravates the built-in gender discrimination. Status of women is low also due to social inhibitions and socio-cultural stigma.
The present population growth rate along with the population momentum and urbanization poses a major challenge. Unacceptably high maternal mortality ratio (320-400 per 100,000 live births) and morbidity remains a serious concern in Bangladesh. An estimated 12,000 mothers die yearly from pregnancy related complications. One fifth of all maternal deaths are due to obstetric causes related to abortion and its complications.
Influences on Decline:
1. Fertility decline is driven primarily by social change: strengthening family planning programs, investing in human development, delaying first births, and widening birth spacing are all contributing factors in stabilizing growth rate.
2. Continual combating of the detrimental factors that keep fertility rates high: low educational levels, continued son preference, high infant mortality, gender inequality, and poor status of women.
3. Systematized government programs to combat the effects of the influence of relatively frequent and devastating natural disasters (e.g. cyclone of 1991, 100,000 deaths). The resultant social and political upheaval that ensues from such disaster influences the intensification of poverty.
4. Contraception prevalance at 58.1%
K E N Y A :
For the past thirty years Kenya's annual natural population growth rate has been among the highest for any nation. The Central Intelligence Agency's 2008 World Factbook lists the population growth rate of this area of Sub-Saharan African at 2.758%. The AIDS/HIV epidemic as well as natural disasters like a sever drought in 1999-2000 caused a brief decline in population growth, but it was a short-lived trend. At the current rate Kenya's population has the potential to double by 2033. The country's meager agricultural/industrial economy could not possibly withstand expansion of that level. It is estimated that 50% of the population already lives below the poverty line. Some 73 percent of Kenyans are under 30 and the corruption-ravaged government has difficulty educating and finding jobs for hordes of youth. In two years, Kenya will have 70 people per square kilometer, up from 10 in 1950. Though one-fifth of Kenyans now live in urban areas, up from 6 percent in 1950, there is competition for farmland even though only a scant 8% of the land is arable. Some of the worst tribal battles have occurred in rural areas over this precious commodity.
Lower fertility and slower population growth temporarily increase the relative size of the workforce, opening an historic, one-time only demographic window that provides an opportunity for human and financial investment in economic growth. Unfortunately, in many of the poorest countries that are most in need of such a break, population momentum, high levels of unwanted fertility and the pervasive presence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic are curtailing the opportunity before it has even begun.
Long-term demographic and economic data indicate that high fertility raises absolute levels of poverty by slowing economic growth; reducing the poverty reduction that growth would have helped deliver, and skewing the distribution of consumption against the poor. Fertility reduction through greater acceptance of family planning counters both of these effects. Investments in improved reproductive health assist in redressing gender inequities and barriers to social and economic participation.
In many societies, health gains and reductions in the birth rate have accompanied the demographic transition and gains in economic growth to produce a decline in the incidence of poverty. Elsewhere, however, persistent population growth not only constrains development opportunities but contributes to environmental degradation.
Poverty is associated with high levels of unwanted births particularly in rural areas where the majority of the poor live. Consequently improved reproductive health and provision for unmet needs should be an integral part of poverty reduction strategies, especially in countries such as those of sub-Saharan Africa where major health issues such as HIV/AIDS tend to subvert attempts to achieve sustainable development.
While Kenya has also experienced a decline in population growth over the same period of time the rate of success is not as promising as that of Bangladesh. And while Kenya's total population is roughly 1/3 of Bangladesh, it is six times what it was in the 1950s. The factors related to Kenya's situation are different but related to the previous example:
Influences on Decline:
1. High fertility, combined with declining mortality, gave Kenya one of the world's fastest population growth rates in the 1970s and 1980s.
2. Kenya was one of the first countries to adopt a policy to slow population growth. But the idea of limiting births was slow to catch on in a society that valued large families.
3. AIDS/HIV epidemic and warring tribes affect mortality rates resulting in young population.
4. Despite mortality rate Kenya's population has continued to grow at a rapid clip: about 2.6 percent annually in the early 2000s. The total population has more than doubled since 1978, and is projected to reach 65 million by 2050.
5. This change influenced the intensification of poverty.
6. Lack of arable land, forcing much of the large population to live in urban slums in relatively small area of land.