NATIONAL10 (Spotlight Weelky)]

Population Growth In Nepal: The Challenges Ahead

By Dr. Shyam Thapa

The Central Bureau of Statistics recently reported that Nepal's total population in 2001 has reached 23.2 million, having grown at an annual rate of 2.27 percent in the last decade. These figures are slightly lower than those projected by a team of demographers a few years ago. The discrepancy is not surprising, given that census data are usually subject to undercounting for various reasons.

Nepal has conducted a census every decade for nearly 100 years. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, what can we forecast about Nepal's population growth over the next few decades? Recently Dr. Griffith Feeney, a preeminent American demographer, Mr. Keshav Sharma, director of Nepal's Central Bureau of Statistics, and I mapped several demographic trajectories for Nepal. (Details of the study are being published in a journal). The population problem facing Nepal is both quantitative and qualitative. Quantitatively, every year about half a million people are added to Nepal's population, about the same number as the current population of Kapilbastu District. Qualitatively - in terms of human resources - only about half of Nepal's population is literate, and the literacy rate among females is especially low. In this note, I shall focus on the quantitative aspects of population change in Nepal.

Nepal carried out five population censuses prior to the 1961 census, in 1911, 1920, 1930, 1941, and 1952-54. Our detailed analysis of the series indicates that the censuses of 1911, 1920, and 1930 undercounted the total population by about one-third. The basis for this conclusion is the impossibility of arriving, by any reasonable combination of fertility and mortality levels, at the 1961 census population without adjusting the earlier enumerated numbers substantially upward. After reconstructing the population's past 100 years of age structure and growth, we projected the rate and structure of population change for the next several decades, basing our projections on four sets of assumptions, or scenarios.

Scenario I: Continued slow decline of growth

Our first scenario assumes that fertility (the birth rate) will decline by 0.45 children per woman per decade and continue to decline until reaching replacement level, taken to be 2.1 children per woman, after which replacement-level fertility will be maintained. In this scenario, fertility reaches replacement level in 2056, by which time the total population will have grown to 77 million. Nepal's young age structure will produce sufficient population momentum, however, to delay population stabilization for another 50 years, during which the population will grow to just under 100 million.

The rate of fertility decline is slower in Nepal than in Asia generally. The average rate of decline for 21 Asian countries, according to United Nations estimates, is one child per woman per decade, and rates of decline as high as two children per woman per decade have been observed. It is therefore appropriate to consider alternative scenarios for Nepal, in which fertility declines more rapidly.

Scenario II: Zero population growth beginning in 2001

Simply as a mathematical exercise, it is possible to construct a scenario in which population growth ceases immediately. In such a scenario, in which no immigration is assumed to occur, the number of persons five years old and older in 2006 must be less than the total population in 2001 (given that some of those alive in 2001 will have died). Reducing fertility so that the projected number of persons aged 0-4 in 2006 equals this difference will result in zero growth during 2001-2005, and similarly for subsequent periods. This hypothetical scenario is instructive, for it shows that zero population growth is impossible to achieve over the short term and that it would probably be undesirable if it were possible.

The most optimistic scenario for rapid fertility decline, a reduction from five children per woman to one child per woman in only five years, is clearly out of the question. Even if so rapid a fertility decline to so low a level were possible -- and it should be noted that one-child families remain a goal of China's population policy -- it would be undesirable because it would cause dramatic changes in the population's age structure. The social stresses that would result from so radical a distortion of the age structure can only be guessed at, but they would likely be as great as the stresses caused by rapid population growth. This consideration and the improbability of achieving such rapid fertility decline rule out an early attainment of zero population growth.

Scenario III: A smooth approach to zero growth

Because the previous two scenarios represent extremes, a more rapid fertility decline than exists now - but not too rapid - is likely to be in the best interest of the country. This general notion can be made more specific by considering a third scenario, in which the rate of decline in population growth, though rapid, has acceptable effects on the population age structure.

Standard population projections work forward from an observed initial age distribution and assumed future levels of fertility and mortality to an implied future age distribution and total population size. Scenario II's projection of population stabilization inverts this procedure by stipulating how great population growth is to be (zero) and then ascertaining what levels of fertility are required to yield zero growth.

We apply a similar procedure here; but instead of requiring total population size to be constant, we require that the number of persons 0-4 years of age be constant beyond 2001. This results in a smooth approach to zero population growth sometime in the future, with no disruption of the age structure. Population growth is minimized, subject to the condition that future age distributions never have fewer persons in younger age groups than in older age groups.

Scenario IV: More rapid fertility decline

The rate of fertility decline projected in Scenario III is substantially faster than Nepal has experienced in the recent past, but it is also considerably slower that the declines that have been observed in several other countries. It is therefore appropriate to consider a scenario in which fertility declines more rapidly than it does in Scenario III. Because of the way in which Scenario III was constructed, some distortion of the age structure will necessarily result from a more rapid fertility decline. A moderately distorted age structure, however, may be a reasonable price to pay for less population growth.

Scenario IV implies a total fertility rate of 3.7 children per woman for 2001-2005, 2.8 children per woman for 2006-2010, and 2.2 children per woman for 2011-2015, with near-replacement fertility achieved thereafter. This represents an average rate of decline of 1.8 children per woman per decadeówhich is extremely rapid, but within the range of observed experience in other countries. The gains in reduced population growth from this modest distortion of the population age structure are substantial: population rises to 40 million rather than to the 56 million of Scenario III.

Conclusion

Our study of Nepal's demographic transition has produced evidence, necessarily tenuous in view of the limited statistical data for the first half of the twentieth century, that mortality began to decline from a very high level during the 1930s. Recent data indicate that fertility decline has begun, probably during the 1970s. It has not yet proceeded very far, but the evidence provides some basis for projecting future declines.

The four scenarios for future fertility decline and population growth that we have presented point to several conclusions. A continuation of the recent, slow pace of fertility decline (Scenario I) would result in a total population of nearly 100 million persons by the end of the current century. More rapid decline, similar to the median experience of Asian countries (Scenario III), would reduce this growth to fewer than 60 million persons. Still more rapid decline, close to the limit observed in countries that have experienced the most rapid declines (Scenario IV), could reduce the growth to 40 million persons. It is possible, if not yet likely, that very rapid decline could be achieved through a combination of smaller family sizes and delayed childbearing. A rapid approach to zero population growth - and anything less than a doubling of current population size - (Scenarios II and IV) may be ruled out with a high degree of certainty.

Considered together, the four scenarios point to a prediction that can be made with considerable confidence: Nepal's population will at least double over the current century. No conceivable fertility decline can prevent this, whether or not induced to some degree by rising age at childbearing. Only catastrophically high mortality levels could prevent this future growth, which will result from the momentum of the population's young age structure.

It should be emphasized that a doubling of population to 40 million persons is the least growth that can be expected. At the current rate of fertility decline, the population will grow to 100 million over the next hundred years. If a smaller population size in this range is in the national interest, striving for a more rapid decline in fertility is as important as striving to accommodate a much larger population.

(Dr. Shyam Thapa, Senior Scientist, Family Health International, specializes in demographic and public health research and evaluation.)

At the current rate of fertility decline, Nepal's population will grow to nearly 100 million over the next hundred years. A doubling of the population to 40 million persons is the least growth that can be expected. If a smaller population size in this range is in the national interest, striving for a more rapid decline in fertility is as important as striving to accommodate a much larger population.