{"id":99097,"date":"2020-02-18T18:15:41","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T01:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=99097"},"modified":"2020-02-18T18:15:41","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T01:15:41","slug":"population-growth-and-women-fertility-related-issues-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/02\/18\/population-growth-and-women-fertility-related-issues-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"POPULATION GROWTH AND WOMEN FERTILITY RELATED ISSUES IN SRI LANKA"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Population\nin any country contemplates as a macroeconomic factor that has a relationship\nwith a broader economic activity in a country and policymakers concern with\npopulation-related issues as it associates with primarily economic development\nand it also concerns with social and cultural issues. Many western countries\nface the problem of economic growth as they have a lower population growth rate\nwhich has become making a lesser volume of people adding to the existing labor\nforce thereby creating difficulties to implement labor-intensive economic\nprojects. In this environment, western countries attract migrants from any\ncountry but it has a limit because they have secret policy objectives that\nclash with attracting people especially from developing countries to maintain a\nrequired population.  The practical\nexperience in the western developed countries shows that such countries want to\nmaintain an ethnic balance and to prevent migrants with characteristics related\nto behavior and disabilities.  However,\nit shows that western countries have good population policies to safeguard\ntheir values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Has\nSri Lanka got a wider population policy, which respects or safeguards the value\nof the country is a debatable question? Various groups of people including\nBuddhist monks and nationalist activators express opinions and integrating such\nopinion to population policy is a gigantic task.  A recent internet program in UTUBE an educated\nBuddhist monk raised a question directing the potential candidates of political\nparties in the next general election whether they know the information related\nto the population of the country. The Buddhist reverend\u2019s question is vital\nbecause peoples\u2019 representatives of the country must know basic information\nabout the population unless they wouldn\u2019t be suitable to address issues as\npeoples\u2019 representatives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women\u2019s\nfertility in Sri Lanka is a concerned matter for a long time, which means since\nindependence in 1948, population controls and women’s fertility have been\nfocused by policy-makers in the country to control the increase in population.\nBut it is doubtful whether the policy-makers had a concrete policy and\nstrategies to maintain an acceptable population for all ethnic and religious\ncommunities in the country.  When\ncompared to many countries in the West, the controversy relating to women’s\nfertility is a serious sensitive issue than in Sri Lanka, where is women\nfertility Akins with the ethnic equation of the country. There is no argument\nthat women’s fertility is an individual human right as well as women’s rights\nin the world.  This doesn\u2019t mean that the\ngovernment can allow any number of kids to have each woman as it concerns the\nrights of women and the health of women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\nthe population classification in Sri Lanka at the census conducted in 1881,\nwhich was regarded as the first official census in Sri Lanka in history, had\ndone a serious mistake using different criteria to categorize the total\npopulation. Neither the colonial government nor independent Sri Lanka’s\ngovernments have taken actions to rectify the problem, most probably the use of\nonly ethnic core for population classification has been a factor that involved\nin party politics.  The classification of\nthe population using the ethnic base and religious belief without using a single\ncriterion in the 1881 census was a root cause for ethnic problems in Sri Lanka.\nThe census used multiple criteria such as language, religion, descendent for\nthe classification of one nation and illogical classification later became a\nvicious factor for ethnic problems in the country. Although the government and\nNon-government agencies attempted to find ethnic issues in the country no\nagency proposed to correct the mistake applying a single criterion for\npopulation classification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women\u2019s\nfertility considers as the most significant factor that affecting a woman\u2019s\nchance to conceive and have a healthy baby (www.yourfertility.org.au<\/a>)\nand it is a medical-related problem in the world (www.genea.com.au<\/a>)\nas it is related to the improvement of the probability of conception by age and\nthe conception by age and IVF success. The women’s fertility in Sri Lanka needs\nto consider from a different point of view. \nAccording to the information given in the Census report of 2012, 67.1%\nof women were married and the average children for a woman are 4.8, which\ncalculated on the findings of Urban women 3.4, Rural women 5.1 and Estate woman\n4.0.  The statistics indicate that rural\nwomen have more children without religious or racial differences.  The average women fertility in 2012 compared\nto 1981 was recorded urban women 2.1, rural women 2.5 and Estate women 3.0. The\nstatistics have proven that women’s fertility of urban women (2.1) is lower\nthan rural women (2.5) and Estate women (3.0). The statistics relating to\nwomen’s fertility indicate that women in the estate sector receive more babies\nthan in other areas. It is further surprising factor that women fertility of\nSri Lanka Muslim women (3.3) is the highest compared to Sinhala women (2.3),\nSri Lanka Tamil Women (2.3), Sri Lanka Muslim women 3.3) and others (2.4).  This may be a disturbing revelation and\nanother surprising factor is that women who no school attended (1.9) are the\nlowest fertility compared to primary education and secondary education\ncompleted (2.7). GCE education received (2.5), higher education received (2.2)\nand all women (2.4). It is concerning a matter that the women fertility of\nMuslim women is 3.3 which considerably higher than the national average (2.4)  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According\nto the first census recorded in 1881, Sri Lanka\u2019s total population was 2745100,\nwhich has increased to 20359439 in 2012 and the Central Bank report in 2017\nreported that the estimated population in the country was 21444000.  The population of Sri Lanka has dramatically\nincreased and one of the major reasons for rapid increase could be assumed as\nthe increase in women’s fertility and compared to the resources availability\nand the land area of the country, the level of population is seemed to\neconomically disadvantaged to the country. \nAn increase in unemployment, less per capita government spending for\nhuman services, lower development in semi-urban and rural areas have been\ncaused by the high population in the country during the past two decades.  The statistics in 1998, Sri Lanka was the\ncountry where recorded 1.9 woman’s fertility, which was the lowest level in the\nSouth Asian region and it has increased to the highest in Asia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\npopulation growth rate, which calculates as the difference between birth rate\nand death rate is 0.7% according to the census report of 2012.  It is a lower rate and the migration of\npopulation from Sri Lanka to other countries might be significant factor for\nlower rate of growth and the next census will be in 2022 and the result of the\ncensus of 2022 would be critical to Sri Lanka. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-theophilus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}