Rapid population growth hinders Millennium Development Goals
NEW YORK, 2. April 2009: Rapid population growth presents a barrier to reducing poverty levels and reaching other internationally agreed development goals, experts attending the current session of the United Nations population body have warned.
The five-day meeting of the Commission on Population and Development examined the extent to which population growth affects the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs – 2015 Målene), globally agreed targets on reducing poverty and eliminating other social ills by 2015.
Though admitting the sliding birth rates across the developing world since the 1970s, a policy brief by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) highlighted that women in most of the least developed countries (LDCs) still have five children each on average.
The experts pointed to the lack of access to family planning and to modern methods of contraception as the major cause of this persistence in high fertility.
– When individuals and couples are given the possibility of deciding how many children they want to have, they usually opt for much lower numbers than they used to, Hania Zlotnik, Director of the Population Division, said.
Zlotnik noted that giving people the information and means for reaching their reproductive goals without any kind of interference or coercion has significant implications for economic and social development.
Reducing population growth through cutting fertility rates, versus increasing mortality or restricting migration, is beneficial to the economy, as low fertility increases the number of people of working age per capita as well as output per capita, according to the Population Division brief.
Benefits to economic growth also occur as lowering fertility leads to an increase in the supply of female labour, particularly in urban areas in developing countries.
In addition, smaller family size allows for greater investment in the health and education of children in the longer term both from the family and government, it added.
Kilde: The Push Journal
