We all know that fertility in Bangladesh has been declining over time. In fact, reduction in fertility has been one of the drivers to 'development puzzle' that Bangladesh is ascribed to. Remember world famous economist Michael Lipton's three 'F's in explaining the development of Bangladesh - fertility, food and farming.
In a recent article on the above-mentioned topic published in the International Journal for Population, Development and Reproductive Health (Volume 1 Issue No.1, December 2017), Barkat-e-Khuda, NurulAlam, Mohammad Sazzad Hasan, Samiha Barkat and Md. Rabiul Haque came up with a robust analysis of the fertility trends in Bangladesh. "Fertility was quite high in the 1970s and the 1980s with a total fertility rate (TFR) of over 6. It then started to decline. The Bangladesh fertility transition can be divided into five phases: (i) high fertility until the mid-1980s, (ii) rapid decline in fertility between 1989 and 1993-1994, (iii) fertility decline between 1994 and 2000, (iv) substantial decline in between 2000 and 2011, and (v) further stalling of fertility decline between 2011 and 2014.The study is based on retrospective birth history data of the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) conducted in and around 2000, 2004, 2007, 2011 and 2014. Among others, even married women aged 15-49 years were asked a series of questions to construct a retrospective live birth history of all of their deliveries.
The topic should be of immense interest as fertility changes in the country displayed tremendous variations over time affecting socio-economic changes of the economy. We shall highlight, at times paraphrase, some of the observations of the research.
At the beginning of the past century, argue the researchers, Bangladesh had a population of about 29 million people. This is less than one-fifth its present size. It took more than six decades for the population size to almost double to about 51 million in 1961. The subsequent doubling of the population size, however, took less than three decades due to a greater decline in mortality than fertility. In this context, we can have some idea about doubling of world population from what Amartya Sen said, "it took the world population millions of years to reach the first billion, then 123 years to get to the second, followed by 33 years to the third, 14 years to the fourth, and 13 years to the fifth billion, with the promise of a sixth billion to come in another 11 years".
At present, Bangladesh population is over 160 million, making it the eighth most populous country in the world and the fifth largest in Asia. Bangladesh has an appreciable annual rate of around 1.4 per cent population growth. It is worth noting that with the current growth rate, about two million new faces are being added to the titanic total annually. Bangladesh is the most densely populated country in the world (about 1,100 persons per sq. km. in 2011.
The authors are of the view that fertility decline in Bangladesh passed through five phases. The decline in fertility during the five phases of its transition could be adduced to the role of the family planning programme in fertility reduction. Also, the researchers have examined the effects of selected demographic and socio-economic factors in fertility reduction in Bangladesh.
It had long been argued that the decline in fertility in Bangladesh was made possible by the presence of a strong family planning programme. It is difficult to argue that fertility decline in Bangladesh has been driven by a process of socio-economic development involving urbanisation, mechanisation, growing prosperity, and literacy … improved access to contraception etc. The argument is certainly valid for the first phase of fertility transition in Bangladesh led mainly by family planning. By contrast, the plateauing in fertility decline during the third and fifth phases of the transition was due to weak family planning programme efforts.
Substantial fertility decline during the second and fourth phases was made possible by a strong family planning programme operating in a positive socio-demographic and economic environment and negative pressures originated from increasing population size. In addition to what the government did, the family planning programme efforts were also strengthened by the activities of several development NGOs and micro-credit programmes aimed at improving the overall status of women, both economically and socially. Ipso facto, the decline in fertility during the second and fourth phases, cannot be solely attributed to the family planning programme efforts, but also to major demographic and socio-economic changes taking place in the country. Positive changes taking place over time include decline in child mortality; increase in the percentage of women wanting to limit childbearing; improvement in overall economic condition; rise in female education, employment, marriageable age and childbearing age; women's empowerment; and increase in access to mass media - all contributing to decline in fertility.
On the other hand, negative pressures include increasing landlessness, smaller farm size, and shrinking employment opportunities in the agricultural sector that force them to limit their family size and migrate to other areas. Both types of changes contributed to altering the value of children, especially sons, and thereby, depressing family size norms and attitudes. Thus, demographic and socio-economic changes over the past two decades have undeniably reduced the desire for children. It is certainly doubtful whether the total fertility rate (TFR) of 2.3 in 2011 and in 2014 would have been possible in the absence of major socio-demographic and economic changes taking place in Bangladesh over the past two decades. It was often argued that there are important synergies between models (risks and mortality, economic and investment, and cultural transmission) implicating multiple causal pathways in the rapidity and degree of recent demographic transitions. Thus, both the roles of the family planning programme and socio-economic development would have to be taken into account for any satisfactory explanation of the demographic change and fertility transition in Bangladesh.
Based on empirics, the researchers came to the conclusion that "there is clearly the need to address the programmatic challenges to further strengthen family planning programme efforts. Side by side, there is the need to accelerate the process of socio-economic development that will accelerate the fertility-depressing effects. These include, but not limited to, "improving economic conditions through increase in per capita income, and increasing female education and employment to delay both ages at marriage and childbearing".
The writer is a former Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar [email protected]
