LAST week we featured an article on the reader’s reaction to the write-ups based on the latest report by the Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR).
Just when it became apparent that the issue had been brought to its final conclusion, and that last week’s feedback was the last one, there was a “reaction to the reaction”.
This time the reaction was by a reader from ZIPAR itself.He wrote: “Dear James, I read with keenness the reactions relating to ZIPAR’s report on urbanisation.
Interestingly, the reactions that were featured in your article debated the issue of population growth even though the report itself was about managing urbanisation in such a way that it leads to more and better jobs for people living in the urban areas.
This notwithstanding, I thought the comments touched on an interesting subject matter.
Greenwell Phiri from Lusaka argued that rather than advocating the reduction in the population growth, Zambia needed a higher population.
“Zambia can cater for up to tenfold of the Zambian population,” he stated.
He was supported by another reader, J Hamweemba of Livingstone who did not mince his words.
He advised us to leave the issue of population to God himself. “Who are you as a researcher or journalist to try to discourage people from having more children?” he asked.
He further argued that the natural resources in Zambia can accommodate more millions of Zambians if well managed.
I couldn’t agree more with the two points of views. Zambia indeed can do with a larger population than it currently has.
However, the issue of concern is not so much about the growing population but rather, the population age structure.
The current population age structure poses some development challenges that will manifest in the future.
One may wish to know that the Zambian population is largely youthful with about 45 per cent of the population under 15 years of age.
According to the Central Statistical Office (CSO) 2013 population projections, the age structure is likely to remain unchanged for the next 25 years if the fertility rate remains high at five to three children per woman.
Therefore, a question to ask is what does it mean to have a growing youthful population?
The issue is that a large youthful population like for Zambia, creates a huge dependency burden for both families and governments.
This is because resources are mostly spent on making provisions for people who are not in the labour force and are, therefore, not contributing to economic productivity.
Actually, the National Population Policy of 2007 identifies this as a key challenge.
It states that:“A large dependency ratio is a serious burden to development, as a large part of the adult’s output is consumed so that little is left for savings or investment, thus affecting capital formation for advancing economic and social development.”
Of course, this is not to say that it is really a bad thing to have a growing youthful population.
It has its own advantage in that the young population age structure provides an opportunity to harness what are called demographic dividends.
The demographic dividend is the economic benefit that arises when the population has more people in the working age group than young ones (dependants).
This situation is more likely to be achieved if there is rapid fertility decline accompanied by sustained investments in education, skill development, health, job creation and improved governance.
The only precondition is that for Zambia to harness the demographic dividends there should be substantial investment in reproductive health and family planning.
In other words, there is need to systematically discourage people from having more children.
This will result in more working age population and fewer dependants.
My point, therefore, is that whereas we may not support the idea of discouraging people from having more children, we may begin to think otherwise if we take into consideration what will happen in the future.
Leaving the pattern of population growth as it is may create development challenges in the future.
We may probably need to begin to take the difficult decisions now.
In any case, the comforting thing is that Zambia’s population size will continue to grow for many decades to come even if fertility rate was to decline significantly and rapidly.
This is so because the youthful population has already created a momentum that will see the population growing.
Although these young people may have fewer children compared to the older generation, their total number of births can be much larger because of the greater numbers of the younger generation.
This guarantees a substantial population increase in the future.
“GIBSON MASUMBA, ZIPAR Research fellow – Human Development”

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