POPULATION GROWTH AND WOMEN FERTILITY RELATED ISSUES IN SRI LANKA
Posted on February 18th, 2020

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS

Population in any country contemplates as a macroeconomic factor that has a relationship with a broader economic activity in a country and policymakers concern with population-related issues as it associates with primarily economic development and it also concerns with social and cultural issues. Many western countries face the problem of economic growth as they have a lower population growth rate which has become making a lesser volume of people adding to the existing labor force thereby creating difficulties to implement labor-intensive economic projects. In this environment, western countries attract migrants from any country but it has a limit because they have secret policy objectives that clash with attracting people especially from developing countries to maintain a required population.  The practical experience in the western developed countries shows that such countries want to maintain an ethnic balance and to prevent migrants with characteristics related to behavior and disabilities.  However, it shows that western countries have good population policies to safeguard their values.

Has Sri Lanka got a wider population policy, which respects or safeguards the value of the country is a debatable question? Various groups of people including Buddhist monks and nationalist activators express opinions and integrating such opinion to population policy is a gigantic task.  A recent internet program in UTUBE an educated Buddhist monk raised a question directing the potential candidates of political parties in the next general election whether they know the information related to the population of the country. The Buddhist reverend’s question is vital because peoples’ representatives of the country must know basic information about the population unless they wouldn’t be suitable to address issues as peoples’ representatives.

Women’s fertility in Sri Lanka is a concerned matter for a long time, which means since independence in 1948, population controls and women’s fertility have been focused by policy-makers in the country to control the increase in population. But it is doubtful whether the policy-makers had a concrete policy and strategies to maintain an acceptable population for all ethnic and religious communities in the country.  When compared to many countries in the West, the controversy relating to women’s fertility is a serious sensitive issue than in Sri Lanka, where is women fertility Akins with the ethnic equation of the country. There is no argument that women’s fertility is an individual human right as well as women’s rights in the world.  This doesn’t mean that the government can allow any number of kids to have each woman as it concerns the rights of women and the health of women.

However, the population classification in Sri Lanka at the census conducted in 1881, which was regarded as the first official census in Sri Lanka in history, had done a serious mistake using different criteria to categorize the total population. Neither the colonial government nor independent Sri Lanka’s governments have taken actions to rectify the problem, most probably the use of only ethnic core for population classification has been a factor that involved in party politics.  The classification of the population using the ethnic base and religious belief without using a single criterion in the 1881 census was a root cause for ethnic problems in Sri Lanka. The census used multiple criteria such as language, religion, descendent for the classification of one nation and illogical classification later became a vicious factor for ethnic problems in the country. Although the government and Non-government agencies attempted to find ethnic issues in the country no agency proposed to correct the mistake applying a single criterion for population classification.

Women’s fertility considers as the most significant factor that affecting a woman’s chance to conceive and have a healthy baby (www.yourfertility.org.au) and it is a medical-related problem in the world (www.genea.com.au) as it is related to the improvement of the probability of conception by age and the conception by age and IVF success. The women’s fertility in Sri Lanka needs to consider from a different point of view.  According to the information given in the Census report of 2012, 67.1% of women were married and the average children for a woman are 4.8, which calculated on the findings of Urban women 3.4, Rural women 5.1 and Estate woman 4.0.  The statistics indicate that rural women have more children without religious or racial differences.  The average women fertility in 2012 compared to 1981 was recorded urban women 2.1, rural women 2.5 and Estate women 3.0. The statistics have proven that women’s fertility of urban women (2.1) is lower than rural women (2.5) and Estate women (3.0). The statistics relating to women’s fertility indicate that women in the estate sector receive more babies than in other areas. It is further surprising factor that women fertility of Sri Lanka Muslim women (3.3) is the highest compared to Sinhala women (2.3), Sri Lanka Tamil Women (2.3), Sri Lanka Muslim women 3.3) and others (2.4).  This may be a disturbing revelation and another surprising factor is that women who no school attended (1.9) are the lowest fertility compared to primary education and secondary education completed (2.7). GCE education received (2.5), higher education received (2.2) and all women (2.4). It is concerning a matter that the women fertility of Muslim women is 3.3 which considerably higher than the national average (2.4)  

According to the first census recorded in 1881, Sri Lanka’s total population was 2745100, which has increased to 20359439 in 2012 and the Central Bank report in 2017 reported that the estimated population in the country was 21444000.  The population of Sri Lanka has dramatically increased and one of the major reasons for rapid increase could be assumed as the increase in women’s fertility and compared to the resources availability and the land area of the country, the level of population is seemed to economically disadvantaged to the country.  An increase in unemployment, less per capita government spending for human services, lower development in semi-urban and rural areas have been caused by the high population in the country during the past two decades.  The statistics in 1998, Sri Lanka was the country where recorded 1.9 woman’s fertility, which was the lowest level in the South Asian region and it has increased to the highest in Asia.

The population growth rate, which calculates as the difference between birth rate and death rate is 0.7% according to the census report of 2012.  It is a lower rate and the migration of population from Sri Lanka to other countries might be significant factor for lower rate of growth and the next census will be in 2022 and the result of the census of 2022 would be critical to Sri Lanka. 

2 Responses to “POPULATION GROWTH AND WOMEN FERTILITY RELATED ISSUES IN SRI LANKA”

  1. aloy Says:

    “The population of Sri Lanka has dramatically increased and one of the major reasons for rapid increase could be assumed as the increase in women’s fertility and compared to the resources availability and the land area of the country, the level of population is seemed to economically disadvantaged to the country. An increase in unemployment, less per capita government spending for human services, lower development in semi-urban and rural areas have been caused by the high population in the country during the past two decades.”

    Absolute nonsense. Where are the statistics?.

  2. Ancient Sinhalaya Says:

    Now the mussies didn’t land any ministerial posts, mussie baby machines will start baby production like no tomorrow. That is what traitor low lives did while Sinhalese and the other traitor lot, tamils, killing each other. Mussies multiplied and multiplied and quadrupled the numbers. Now traitors will go into overdrive and produce
    votes by lorry loads. Any deshapaluwa going to open their mouth to warn the imminent danger of Sri Lanka becoming a mussie hell hole. Of course not, they all want to lick the backsides of the these untrustworthy, lying, cheating, conniving, fastest breeding religion followers. Yapila maathiya yemada koronawa and do exactly the opposite. That’s the mussies
    for Sinhala modayas.

    Traitor alugosuwa (to Sinhalese Buddhists only) thambi mudiyanselage jr@ started the destruction of the Sinhalese
    race, Sri Lanka and Buddhism with the traitor low life’s disastrous new constitution. Since then traitor alugoswas
    (to Sinhalese Buddhists only) lk porisada R@, traitor traitor chief die hard catholic token Buddhist Batalande
    wa(n)dakaya Pol Pot r@ni_leech wickrama Sinhala killer, puppet the rubber stamp vairapala sorry sena all
    promoted mussies and tamils to get into power and stay in power. Now, Sinhalese race, Sri Lanka and Buddhism
    dying a slow death! We should not forget the contribution made by die hard catholic token Buddhist Batalande
    wa(n)dakaya’s church acolyte A K de lapaya’s jaathidhrohee vermins’ party for the demise of the Sinhalese race,
    Sri Lanka and Buddhism.

    Wipe out anti Buddhist, anti Sri Lanka, anti Sinhalese (specialists in killing Sinhalese Buddhists – 60,000+
    Bheeshana samaya,100,000+ catholic tigers of tamil drealam), minority worshiping, Mother Lanka dismembering GooandPee aka UNPatriotic_rats to savethe Sinhalese race, Buddhism and Sri Lanka!

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