With other things remaining the same, it is assumed that welfare of a household depends on the number of members it has to feed and a reduction in the size of household signals a rise in their living standard. Although the number of households in rural Bangladesh has increased over time because of split in family and migration, members per household (household size) have drastically declined from 6.15 in 1988 to 4.24 in 2013.
Without going into hair-scratching calculus, we can possibly argue that such a reduction in household size would mean a reduction of rice consumption by 1 kg per day per household (of course in association with a reduction in rice intake following increased income). At household level, the money so saved on account of rice intake could be put to education or health. At the national level, policymakers could heave a sigh of relief as far as rice is concerned and possibly ponder over emphasising non-rice crops.
We observe that the proportion of infants (aged 0-5) has been gradually declining over time, and so is the case with children aged 6-10. In other words, the proportion of population aged up to 10 years has significantly fallen from about 40 to about 27 per cent between 1988 and 2013. This implies that the base of the population pyramid has substantially shrunk over time.
However, there has been a rise in the ratio of 61 plus population, thanks to improved life expectancy following improved health care. The most important good news is related to a fall in total dependence, thus, seemingly enabling households to divert resources to productive pursuits. Finally, the rise in working-age population from 49 to 58 per cent during the comparable periods points to the much-talked-about demographic dividend that Bangladesh is blessed with. The working-age group had been constantly entering the labour market to strengthen the economic base. Thus, the fall in the proportion of people at the lower end of the population pyramid gives us a sigh of relief somewhat as the dependence rate has been reducing with the passage of time. But, at the same time, increased working-age population carries a tension for policymakers as jobs need to be created for the expanding labour force.
The child-woman ratio - a reflection of the current fertility level - has gone down from 67 per 1,000 in 1988 to 36 which shows further success in population control. However, there is very little room for complacency as fertility rate is still high in absolute sense. The rate of reduction in fertility has been faster for small land owning groups. The large difference between the fertility level of large and smaller ones that existed in 1988 narrowed down in 2013 quite substantially although the inverse relation still holds. This could be due to the roles played by NGOs and government agencies which target the poor segment in terms of education and extension. Interestingly, education of husband and wife does not seem to have much effect on fertility control. For example, female education has improved over 1988 to 2013 but with no impact on fertility reduction. The rate is still higher for those with secondary education. The unexpected outcome could be due to the unfortunate fact that in patriarchal rural society, the decision about babies generally comes from the male side and women's views are rarely respected. It could also be due to the reason that fertility is mainly related to participation of women in income-earning opportunities - rather than education per se - that raises opportunity costs of rearing children.
With economic growth and transformation, societies tend to witness break-up of families. Engagements of household members in different economic occupations apparently work behind the break-up. Bangladesh is no exception to this historic truth, not even its rural areas. Joint families have been decreasing with the migration of young adults to urban areas and formation of separate families. Large families comprising 6-7 members or more are now seen in TV serials possibly for reminiscence of the past. However, with break-up of families, the proportion of single and two-member families has increased. These may be old-age parents. Disconcertingly, the data show that about 3 in 100 households are now single households compared to less than 1 in 1988. Most of the single-member families are extreme poor (36 per cent single and 41 per cent two-member) with very low land and non-land asset base. This has immense ramifications for social safety nets.
In Bangladesh context - and possibly everywhere too- female-headed households are generally considered fragile in socio-economic indicators, and more so in terms of security. But a rise in the share of such households in Bangladesh warrants a different explanation. This could be the result of migration of male members to urban areas or overseas. We can also possibly presume that growing feminisation of agriculture in Bangladesh has its roots in widespread migration of male members. Thus, it would be erroneous to conclude that female-headed households are necessarily fragile in terms of socio-economic indicators.
Modern technology and other contributory factors apart, rural transformation now taking place in Bangladesh is attributed immensely to the changing demographic dynamics.
The author is a former Professor of Economics, Jahnagirnagar University.
abdul.bayes@brac.net