World Population Day - its significance

S B Karalliyadda

The World Population Day falls today (July 11). World population is the number of humans living on the earth on any given day. This day is commemorated in all the countries throughout the world. The aim is to draw the attention of world leaders to the cultural, social, economic, religious, health, political and all other aspects of the problems arising out of an increasing population worldwide.

The working committee of the United Nations Development programme declared World Population Day as July 11 because on this day the world population reached five billion. It was estimated that on this day the world population was 6,727,551,263. Biologists define population as a set of living human beings in a particular region. Sociologists see it as a congregation of people. Demographers observe the sex ratio of a population, division according to life span, total life span, life expectancy, morbidity and mortality rates, etc.

Human race

These vital statistics are necessary data to plan a country's development, health, education, economy and the related data for future programme planning. It had been difficult to collect exact data due to a large population living in China, Nigeria and such other countries. It is difficult to collect data upto a last ten million.

The Industrial revolution of the 17th century coupled with the development of health services and increased agricultural production made a substantial contribution to a population increase. The green revolution from 1940 to 1995 which led to a vast population increase prompted the UN Population Secretariat to declare that the world population will exceed ten billion when we reach 2055 AD.

There are about one thousand ethnic groups living in 223 countries. The majority belong to Hans Chinese Ethnic group which is the largest group comprising 19.73 percent of the world population. About 6.06 percent of the world population is of Spanish origin. About 14.02 percent belong to semi Sahara origin blacks.

Table indicates the population growth for five years from 2000 to 2005. (See table)

The UN believe that the population increased at a rate 1.14 percent making an increase of about seventy five millions.

The Asian region where 3.8 million live consists of about 60 percent of the world population. About 20 percent live in the Republic of China and 17 percent live in India.

There are 12 percent in Africa, 11 percent in Europe, eight percent in North America, 5.03 percent in South America, 21.03 percent in Australia. This is a distribution of the people living on earth. According to UN report issued in 2006, about 27 percent of the total population are below the age of 15 years and categorized as dependent population. Our dependent population stands at three percent. In India the dependent population is 17.17 percent while in Japan it records 1.9 percent.

According to demographic scientists the world population will grow till 2050 while the deaths are recorded about 56 billion a year and will be 90 billion in 2050 as expected by demographers. By controlling population it is expected to create a time gap between the birth and conception of a new baby. A method of birth control is first recorded in Greece.

They established human settlements in the Mediterranean and Black Sea valleys and settled their excess population and started controlling population.

They also adopted primitive methods of aborting expectant mothers and killing infants. The People's Republic of China adopted the policy of one child per family.

A serious anti social phenomenon that resulted in this policy was illegal abortion, LRT operations and infanticide. The other results of this policy was that they had a ratio of 100 females to 114 males.

India also started their population control programmes under state patronage from 1950s and 60s. They opened their mobile vasectomy programmes in New Delhi pavements, etc.

I got the opportunity to visit such centres when I attended a Workshop in New Delhi on population planning sponsored by the WHO India adopted such control methods as they envisaged zero growth in the country's economy. But countries like Sweden, France where there is a natural control on population growth, encourage population growth by giving incentives to mothers such as allowances, baby care centres, salary increments, etc.

Sri Lanka

The first population censes was taken in 1871 when the total population was recorded as 2400.4 thousand consisting of 1280.1 thousand males and 1120.3 thousand females.

Population growth

A census of population is taken once in ten years. At that time there were 17 districts and Ampara, Polonnaruwa and Moneragala districts were added later.

Mullaitive and Killinochi districts were the last two new districts. In 2001, the census was fully conducted only in eight of these districts and partially in two districts. No enumeration was done in Jaffna, Mullaitive and Kilinochchi due to the conflict. At that time the population recorded was 16,864,687.

The growth ratio was 1.2 percent which was considered as an increase of 28.2 percent over the census statistics of 1981. In 12 districts enumerated out of a total of 18 districts the female population out number the males.

This trend is strongly recorded in Matara, Galle, Kandy, Gampaha and Kegalle districts. The increase in males are recorded in Colombo, Ampara, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Moneragala and Ratnapura districts.

Sri Lanka has 342 people per square kilometre while it is 352.9 in India. India is recorded the second country with the highest population.

Bangladesh is named as a country of rapid growth. Its density of population is 1055 per square kilometre. Japan is considered a country of zero growth. In Sri Lanka 32.9 percent of the population or two third is below 18 years and considered as ‘dependent'.

According to census conducted in 2001 in 18 districts, the female population is 177,961 more than the males.

The demographers call this ‘sex ratio’ which is the indication of females over the males. Eighty percent of our population is considered rural and 5.3 consists of the estate population.

The highest under 18 years which is 606,082 is recorded in Colombo district while Polonnaruwa District with 124,723 is the second.