Overpopulation And Its Effects

POPULATION: Population means the number of people living in a particular place. It can be defined as the total number of people who live together in a specific area to fulfill their goals. Basically all the residents of a place living together is termed as population. Every country, city, town or village has its own population according to the resources that they have. Therefore the act of populating is called as population and a group of people who’s rights are legally recognized are called population.

OVER POPULATION: Over population is a condition where the normal number of people increase to an extinct where it becomes very difficult to facilitate them. Over population is the exceeding limit of people. In population size matters a lot. There is a French philosopher named Rousseau who said that the size of the population matters a lot and said that population should always be according to the economic resources. However when the group of people exceed the limit then over population occurs. Therefore when too many people are living in an area where there is less space, economic and natural resources then over population occurs. Overpopulation is a significant reason for a large portion of the world’s issues. Regardless of whether it is an issue of nourishment deficiency, absence of drinking water or vitality deficiencies, each nation on the planet is influenced by it.

POPULATION EXPLOSION: The word population explosion also relates to the overpopulation or the rapid growth of people with in an area. The word population explosion is also called population blast which additionally identifies with the overpopulation or the fast development of individuals with in a region.

PAKISTAN’S REGION AND ECONOMY WITH RESPECT TO POPULATION: Pakistan is the county that comes on numr 5 in terms of population. Basically the problem is that Pakistan is that Pakistan is a small country and it has a very huge number of population. According to the new researches that are done it has been observed that the population will not decrease but keep on increasing in the coming years in Pakistan. The researches show that by almost 2050 the population will rise to 400 million.

PAKISTAN’S AREA, DENSITY, URBAN AND RURAL AREA: Area of Pakistan is 881,913 km square. Around 39% is urban population in Pakistan and rural is around 60 %. Population density is around 281 km square.

DEMOGRAPHY: Demography comes from two Greek words, Demos which means people and Graphy which means writing about something. Therefore demography means writing about people. The composition of a particular human nature is called demography. To explain demography we can give easy examples like births, deaths, marriages, number of males and females etc. Demography is the science of populations. People who work for demography try to understand population by investigating processes starting from birth till death.

DEMOGRAPHICS OF PAKISTAN: There have been many social changes in Pakistan. These changes have caused to form a new era of urbanization within the country. According to a research of 2003 Pakistan became one of the most urbanized cities in South Asia because 36% of the citizens were included. We can say almost around 50 per cent of Pakistani citizens live in a place where at least 5000 other citizens live as well.

TOTAL POPULATION OF PAKISTAN: Every year in Pakistan many people are born and many die. The population of Pakistan in 2018 was around 212 million. In 2019 the total population of Pakistan is 217,680,808. The following graph shows the total population increase from 2010 to 2018. If we talk about our country’s population with respect to genders then males are around 50% while females are 48.76% estimated and the transgender population is around 0.24 % as they are in minorities. Also 8% of the minorities are found in Pakistan which includes a small population of Christians, Sikhs and Ahmadis.

OVER POPULATION AS A SOCIAL ISSUE: Social issue is something that creates a problem in the society and disturbs the people. Something that influences the people in a negative way can be called as social issues. For example in Pakistan the biggest social issue is over population. The question is how can overpopulation be defined as a social issue? The answer to that is that overpopulation is nowadays a very common thing that we are seeing in our society. We don’t have enough resources to provide to people but still we are bringing up a new child to the world every day. In Pakistan 22.8 million kids have no access to education and they are just 5 to 6 years of ages.

CENSUS IN PAKISTAN: In simple words census means to count the number of people. It’s an official count in which the total population is counted. Census is basically done to check how many people are living in a certain area so that they can be provided with their facilities. It is done in order to help citizens and provide them with proper resources along with education, health, school, infrastructure etc. In Pakistan 6 census have taken place and the most recent census was done in 2017 according to which the population was 207,774,520. Before this the census were done in 1961 then 1972, 1981 and 1998. In my opinion census should be done every year so that we keep a record of people and provide facilities equally. This way we can also control the rate of overpopulation.

REASONS AND CAUSES OF OVERPOPULATION IN PAKISTAN: There are many reasons why overpopulation has become such a great issue in Pakistan yet no proper stand is being taken and the matter is not being taken into consideration. Following are the reasons why overpopulation has become such a crises in Pakistan.

1. Lack of education: The first and the most important point that is to be discussed is the lack of education in Pakistan. Education is very important for every human being. It makes one able to understand what is happening around us logically. An educated person has the ability to take practical decisions and make sensible decisions. Education enables individuals to become productive. So if there is no education obviously people will lack behind and will have zero awareness thus resulting in many other issues like child marriages which further leads to overpopulation.
2. Illiteracy rate: Illiteracy means totally uneducated who cannot even read or write. In Pakistan there are many people who cannot even write down their own name. Almost 40 % of the population is uneducated. In Pakistan adult literacy rate is at 65% which means the other 35% illiterate.
3. Lack of women empowerment: According to a definition by Google, empowerment is the process of increasing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes. Women empowerment means when all the women elaborate and recreate what it is that they can be or do and accomplish in a circumstance that they previously were denied. In other words we can say that we are living in a male dominant society where the males dominate over the females. Women are subject to accepting anything that is thrown their way thus, if the man wants more kids the wife has to obey accordingly. This is especially more common in villages and rural areas where people are generally not very educated. Hence it results in overpopulation.
4. Child marriage: Child or early marriage is another cause of over population. According to a research twenty four per cent of women in the country were married before the age of 18 years in the country between 2000 and 2010 with seven per cent married before they reached the age of 15 years. Especially in the rural areas and villages girls are forced to get married even before their 18th birthday. This is another issue that results in overpopulation.
5. Lack of family planning: Currently Pakistan has the highest total fertility rate in South Asia. Lack of family planning also exists in our society. People being uneducated are totally unaware and do not plan family according to the resources. They do not consider the fact that how will they feed their kids and how will they provide them even with the basic necessities of life. Resources are less in Pakistan where as people are more and as a result overpopulation occurs.

China’s one child policy: With reference to over population we can take an example of China’s one child rule. One child policy program was started in 80s by the government of China. The purpose of it was to limit the family to one child each. They basically had an awareness of overpopulation and to limit that they used the method of having one child per family. That is show they controlled over population and birth rate.

1. Traditional norms: Traditional and cultural things also play a part in overpopulation. Let’s take a look at these examples.
2. Desire for male child: Our society is basically male dominant and man has superiority in every matter. If daughters remain to be born then reproduction action lasts till the birth of male child. Thus unwanted children of this type increases population.
3. Polygamy: Polygamy means marrying two or more women. Islam allows polygamy because of wealth. Many men do marry with more than one woman taking benefit of religious sanction and this augments the increase in population.

EFFECTS OF OVERPOPULATION:

1. Unemployment: The following graph shows the rate of unemployment. When a country becomes overpopulated then this causes a rise in unemployment as there fewer jobs to support large number of people. Rise in unemployment gives rise to crime as people will steal various items to feed their family and provide them basic amenities of life. It is difficult to provide jobs to such a large number of people. Right now the rate of unemployment is 5.6 % in Pakistan.
2. Increased crime rate: When there are less resources and a larger number of people to consume them then inequality occurs in society. Due to overpopulation when people are more unemployed are unable to earn for themselves then it leads them towards things like theft, robbery etc which then increases the crime rate. More than that drug addiction becomes very common as we see many homeless people sitting on the footpaths being drunk.
3. Poverty: Poverty is the major issue that Pakistan is facing. So many people are literally unable to get food for 2 times properly. They are unable to educate their kids, they are even not having a proper place to live. This is how overpopulation leads to poverty.
4. Pollution and environmental problems: As a result of population increase a lot of things like noise pollution, land pollution and destruction of environment occurs. In order to create more buildings we are cutting down trees which is then causing global warming. It further is increasing the temperature of the Earth. Due to increase in temperature a lot of destruction is occurring. Other than that as the human population continues to increase then the natural resources, such as fossil fuels, fresh water, arable land forests, continue to be destructed which is causing lots of environmental problems. Similarly noise pollution has become very serious problem due to overpopulation. With more population more number of vehicles are used and they excrete carbon mono oxide which is poisonous for health. This gas further increases pollution in the environment. Climate change is the major reason for overpopulation. You must have seen that the temperature of the Earth is rising day by day. We used to have summers from June to September but now the duration of summers has increased because the temperature has risen more. We barely experience little winters in December only.
5. High cost of living: With less water and resources the packing of many people into confined spaces and a lack of money are causing an increase in the cost of living where as only a percentage of the population will be able to cover all their needs. As difference between demand and supply continues to expand due to overpopulation and then it raises the prices of things like food, shelter and health. This means that people have to pay more to survive and feed their families.

THREATNING SITUATIONS IN PAKISTAN DUE TO OVERPOPULATION: Now obviously when we have an increasing number of population it can cause some threats to the society especially if the problems are not sorted out. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

1. Gap between birth and death rate: So basically we see that everyday rather every hour many children are being born in Pakistan. The families are increasing day by day. There is a huge difference between the birth and death rate. Less people are dying and more are being born. So like obviously this increases the rate of population.
2. More children than adults: As more children are being born every day we can clearly see that there are more kids than adults. This is dangerous because we have very less resources and we need food, education, health and other necessities for the nourishing of kids.
3. Refugees: Okay this is another issue that is causing overpopulation. Pakistan’s Indian refugees is around 2 million.
4. Water supply: This is a very serious issue that we have already started facing. We have very less dams too. If the population keeps on increasing this way then by 2025 we will have to face shortage of water. This is the most threatening situation.

SOLUTION: The problem of overpopulation is very severe in Pakistan and needs to be sorted out. Following are the things that we need to keep in mind and work on them in order to overcome this issue.

1. Education: Education is the most important element that plays a key role in the development of our society and help us deal with issues like overpopulation. Once we spread more education more people will get to know about the hazards of overpopulation. We need to focus more on women education too because we usually have a trend of educating the males and leave behind the girls. So education is very important as an educated person will easily be able to understand the benefits of a small family.
2. Awareness: Spreading awareness is the most important thing after education. We need to spread awareness that how overpopulation is a dangerous thing so that people limit the number of family members according to the resources.
3.  Proper family planning: Government should introduce the family planning organizations to the population to control the high growth rate of population.
4. Delay marriages: Marriages should take place in late age to control the rapidly rising population. It will be helpful to control the over population.

CONCLUSION: Overpopulation can be a huge problem and can cause a lot of issues in our society if not handled properly. It is our government’s duty to enforce laws related to population control.