Population and Employment

Population refers to the inhabitants of a particular place.

In particular words, the population is the aggregate observation of the people in a

community.

Employment is the state of having a paid work.

If this definition confuses you, do not worry because the further explanation will clarify all
these terms to you. But before that, you need to know what is meant by population growth?

The birth rate refers to the annual number of births per thousand population while the
death rate refers to the annual number of deaths per thousand population.

The difference between the birth and death rate is known as the natural increase or
the growth in population. The equation below represents the above information.

Natural Increase = Birth Rate – Death Rate

This was all about the introduction of this topic. Now, let’s discuss some important concepts
regarding population and employment in detail now without further introductions.

Reasons for increase in population:

One of the major problems in our society is that our population is increasing rapidly but
we do not have enough resources to support them.

This causes a burden on the existing resources as well and therefore, overpopulation (when
population exceeds its suitable size within a particular habitat) is a major problem.

Some of the primary reasons for high population growth are:

• Illiteracy is causing unawareness among the people.

When people are unaware of the negative impacts of high population growth, they do not
understand the need to control the increasing population.

This is a major concern when it comes to the people of rural areas because the educational
system in a rural area is not very developed at the moment due to lack of resources.

• In rural areas, there is a high demand for sons.

The farmers in rural areas prefer sons so that they can assist them in work on the farms. As
a result, there are larger families in rural areas as compared to urban areas.

• The ideology of some Muslims and the opposition by ulemas is a major factor as
well.

Some Muslims strongly believe that “Rizq” (sustenance) is provided by God to each and
every soul. Therefore, they condemn the family planning programmes and consider them
useless.

Similarly, some ulemas (religious scholars) also condemn the family planning programmes
on religious grounds and these hindrances eventually lead to an increase in population.

• After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Pakistan accompanied millions of

Afghan refugees.

Before understanding this point, recall your information that population growth is based
upon birth rate, death rate and migrations.

When Afghan refugees came to Pakistan, they settled in the tribal areas on the Western side
of Pakistan. These millions of refugees resulted in an increase in the population of Pakistan.

Moreover, the frequent changes in the government do not allow uniform policies to be
followed to counter high population growth.

This takes us to another very important topic which is about the effects of high population
growth.

Effects of high population growth:

Overpopulation causes a shortage of resources (such as food and water) because of
the competition among the population that increases.
Similarly, problems such as underemployment (people taking jobs that do not reflect their
personal training and financial needs) and unemployment (state of not having a paid job)
are faced.

This is because a country does not have enough potential to provide jobs to the people
according to their skills and capacities. This can lead to drug addiction and crimes.

Apart, there is a burden on the health sector due to the shortage of medicine, doctors, nurses
and hospitals. These problems restrict the development of a country.

The problems associated with a high population are summarized below.

• Shortage of resources (food, water and electricity)

• Increase in drug addicts and crimes
• The burden on the health sector
• Restrictions in the development of a country

Now when you know some of the problems related to overpopulation, it is time to discuss
how can we manage this issue.

Reducing the population growth:

One of the most effective methods is to organize vigorous campaigns regarding family
planning in order to create awareness among people.

This awareness can also be created through advertisement and the effective use of social
media. The women of rural areas can be provided jobs so that they pursue their career
and early marriages can be prevented.

Moreover, child labour can be banned to prevent the people from depending on children
income and as a result, the desire for sons can be countered effectively.
If the literacy rate in the country is increased, the people will understand their
responsibility as a citizen and thus, their standard of living can be improved.

If women education is promoted in Pakistan, the country will prosper financially and the
problem of overpopulation will be resolved. But, why is that so? Let me explain.

When women will be educated, they will work for their income and they will be less
concerned about having children.

They will contribute to the economic development of the country rather than being a
burden on the male population. The above-mentioned points are summarized below:

1. By creating awareness among the people

2. By running effective campaigns and family planning programs
3. Early marriages can be discouraged and women can be educated
4. Child labour can be banned
5. Literacy rate can be increased

These are some of the points that you should be aware of when talking about how to deal
with high growth in population.

Q1. What is meant by employment?

Employment is the state when a person works for a specific time and is paid for his
work. There are three main sectors in which the employed labour force can be divided.

1. Primary sector
2. Secondary sector
3. Tertiary sector
In Pakistan, the primary sector employs the most amount of people. The primary sector
comprises jobs such as farming, fishing, forestry and those that extract raw materials.

Q2. Why is there a high employment in the primary sector in Pakistan?

One of the reasons that Pakistan has high employment in the primary sector is that the
majority of the population lives in rural areas and they practise these activities to earn
a living.

Q3. Define tertiary sector.

The tertiary sector refers to jobs in which services are provided, also comprises a large
labour force in Pakistan. The jobs such as driving, security, insurance and teaching
are some examples.

Note: The tertiary sector generates more employment in Pakistan than in the secondary
sector.

Q4. What do you mean by employment of secondary sector?

The secondary sector refers to the development and manufacture of the primary goods
to convert them to semi-finished or finished products.

Some examples of jobs in the secondary sector are furniture making, car making, steel
making and textile production. This sector requires both skilled and unskilled labour
to progress.

Unfortunately, the rate of skilled labour to unskilled labour is low because of the less
education opportunities in many rural areas which lower the literacy rate.

Unemployment:
When a person does not find a paid job, he is said to be unemployed. There are
many reasons for unemployment and some of them are:

• The technology reduces the need of manpower.

Over the past few years, there has been massive development in technology. As a result,
devices such as computers and other automatic machines have reduced the demand
for manual workers.

Similarly, the mechanization in agriculture has reduced the need for farmers because
machines can do the majority of work such as threshing.
 • There has been a rapid increase in the population which can lead to
unemployment.

When the population grows at a very fast rate, the rate of unemployment increases because
there are fewer development projects and other opportunities to get employed.

Therefore, more jobs need to be created to counter this problem.

• The low literacy rate makes people unable to fulfil the job criteria.

This means that computer literate people are required in many industries but there are very
few people who have the knowledge to deal with a computer.

When this the problem, unemployment occurs because the skills of people do not match the
job requirement and a mismatch is created.

Due to unemployment, drug addiction and crimes increase because the people get frustrated
and they involve illegal activities. Moreover, the purchasing power of people decrease.

When this happens, the production of goods also reduces because the rate at which the
people will purchase will be quite often.

The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and GNP (Gross National Product) also reduces
because the resources remain untapped and people generate less income which hinders the
economic growth.

Q1. How can we reduce unemployment?

Unemployment can be reduced by starting multiple development projects because they

will require both skilled and unskilled labour.

Moreover, the literacy rate can be increased through educational opportunities in

rural areas to generate a computer-literate force that meets the requirements of an
industry.
For the purpose, training institutions can be set up for young people so that the health,
insurance, banking and transport sector can improve.

Migrations:
One of the major reasons why the population growth is high are the rural-urban migrations
(movement from rural to urban areas).

Immigrate: An act of entering a country to live is called immigration.

Emigrate: An act of leaving a country to live is called emigration.

There are multiple urban “pull” factors and rural “push” factors that are mentioned below.

The urban pull factors are:

• There are greater chances of employment

• The quality of life in urban areas is better
• There are more transport and communication opportunities
• The health services are satisfactory
• There are more entertainment opportunities

The rural push factors are:

• Less crop yield (production) for many years

• Natural disasters such as floods destroy farms
• Limited food production
• Limitations in transport
• Undeveloped health sector

These are some of the reasons why many people migrate from rural areas to urban areas.
These migrations create housing problems as land is less to accommodate all citizens.
As a result, unplanned growth of cities occurs and slums and squatter settlements (Katchi
Abadis) grow. Moreover, pollution increases due to the more frequent use of buses and
cars.

Apart, other problems such as a degrading quality of life occur because a high population in
cities reduce the food, water and electricity supply and problems such as electricity shortage
are faced.

The best way to counter these problems is to promote self-help schemes (small scale
projects that allow people to use their skills to develop their local area).

These schemes prevent the people from being a burden on the government and the
community problems can easily be countered.

However, there are chances of mismanagement and theft that reduce the use of these
schemes because corruption can lead to a massive financial loss for a community.

Khuda ki Basti and Orangi Pilot Project (Karachi) are some examples of self-help schemes
in Pakistan.

Demographic transition model:

The DTM (demographic transition model) is based upon the birth and death rates of a
country to suggest a country’s population growth through various stages.

The changes in population growth rates and the effect on population can be shown on the Demographic Transition
Model (Population Cycle) - see diagram below:
This can be divided into four stages:
Stage 1 - High Fluctuating
Birth Rate and Death rate are both high. Population growth is slow and fluctuating.
Reasons
Birth Rate is high as a result of:
• Lack of family planning
• High Infant Mortality Rate: putting babies in the 'bank'
• Need for workers in agriculture
• Religious beliefs
• Children as economic assets

Death Rate is high because of:

• High levels of disease
• Famine
• Lack of clean water and sanitation
• Lack of health care
• War
• Competition for food from predators such as rats
• Lack of education

Typical of Britain in the 18th century and the Least Economically Developed Countries (LEDC's) today.

Stage 2 - Early Expanding

Birth Rate remains high. Death Rate is falling. Population begins to rise steadily.
Reasons
Death Rate is falling as a result of:
• Improved health care (e.g. Smallpox Vaccine)
• Improved Hygiene (Water for drinking boiled)
• Improved sanitation
• Improved food production and storage
• Improved transport for food
• Decreased Infant Mortality Rates

Typical of Britain in 19th century; Bangladesh; Nigeria

Stage 3 - Late Expanding

Birth Rate starts to fall. Death Rate continues to fall. Population rising.
Reasons
• Family planning available
• Lower Infant Mortality Rate
• Increased mechanization reduces need for workers
• Increased standard of living
• Changing status of women

Stage 4 - Low Fluctuating

Birth Rate and Death Rate both low. Population steady

In stage one, you can see that the birth rate is high (due to lack of family planning programs)
and the death rate is also high (less medical facilities).

In stage two, the death rate declines because of improved health facilities, more food
production and improved sanitation.

In stage three, there has been a decrease in the birth rate because of women employment,
improved family planning programs and greater literacy rate.

The stage four indicates a stable birth and death rate in the future.

In short, the past, present and future statistics of the total population are shown through the
demographic transition model.

The population structure is the percentage of females and males in different age groups
and is based upon the birth and death rates of a population.

A population pyramid for Pakistan in 2014.

Male Female
100+
95 – 99
90 – 94
older 85 – 89
dependents 80 – 84
75 – 79
70 – 74
65 – 69
60 – 64
55 – 59
50 – 54
45 – 49
economically 40 – 44
active 35 – 39
30 – 34
25 – 29
20 – 24
15 – 19
young 10 – 14
dependents

15 12 9 6 3 0 0 3 6 9 12 15
Population (in millions) Age Group Population (in million
 Complete the graph using the information below:

Females

Age 20–24 10 million

[1]

(ii) Using Fig. 5.1 describe the population structure of Pakistan.

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