The Onset of Fertility Transition in Pakistan

Abstract

Fertility in Pakistan has shown a stubborn resistance to change. Because of sharp declines in mortality following World War II, the population of Pakistan was growing at the rate of 2.7 percent per annum around 1960. In response to concern about rapid growth, a national policy of slowing population growth was articulated in the 1960s, with a program of family planning services as the main tool (Government of Pakistan 1965). During its first two decades, however, the program appeared to have had scant impact on fertility: the total fertility rate
(TFR) continued to hover between six and seven births per woman throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and the population growth rate approached 3 percent per annum (Sathar 1993). Repeated assertions that a decline in marital fertility was underway proved baseless.[1]