Global Baby Bust: Pakistan is A Rare Bright Spot Among Most Populous Nations in Asia
There is an alarming rapid decline in fertility rates in both developed and developing nations, according to the United Nations. Here is how the Wall Street Journal describes it: "The world is at a startling demographic milestone. Sometime soon, the global fertility rate will drop below the point needed to keep the population constant. It may have already happened".
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| Total Fertility Rates in 12 Most Populous Nations. Source: Wall Street Journal |
Birth rates are low and fertility is rapidly dropping for women across all levels of income, education and labor-force participation around the world. Fertility is falling among Pakistani women too but more slowly than elsewhere in Asia. In fact, Pakistani women have the third highest fertility rate (3.47) among the 12 most populous nations of the world.
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| Pakistan Fertility Rate. Source: Data Commons |
Birth rates have economic, social and geopolitical consequences. "The falling birthrates come with huge implications for the way people live, how economies grow and the standings of the world’s superpowers", says the Wall Street Journal report titled "Suddenly There Aren’t Enough Babies. The Whole World Is Alarmed".
No challenge is greater than the irreversible decline in female fertility rates that China, Japan, South Korea and the West are now experiencing. It's an existential threat. Nations and civilizations with sub-replacement fertility rates will eventually cease to exist. Automation can not replace young curious minds responsible for new ideas, innovation and social and economic vitality. Nor can automation replace consumers needed to buy and pay for products and services produced by robots.
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| Economic Growth Rate Till 2075. Source: Goldman Sachs Investment Research |
Economic Impact of Slower Population Growth:
Daly and Gedminas argue that slowing population growth in the developed world is causing their economic growth to decelerate. At the same time, the economies of the developing countries are driven by their rising populations. Here are four key points made in the report:
1) Slower global potential growth, led by weaker population growth.
2) EM convergence remains intact, led by Asia’s powerhouses. Although real GDP growth has slowed in both developed and emerging economies, in relative terms EM growth continues to outstrip DM growth.
3) A decade of US exceptionalism that is unlikely to be repeated.
4) Less global inequality, more local inequality.
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| Goldman Sachs' Revised GDP Projections. Source: The Path to 2075 |
Demographic Dividend:
With rapidly aging populations and declining number of working age people in North America, Europe and East Asia, the demand for workers will increasingly be met by major labor exporting nations like Bangladesh, China, India, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia and Vietnam. Among these nations, Pakistan is the only major labor exporting country where the working age population is still rising faster than the birth rate.
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| Pakistan Population Youngest Among Major Asian Nations. Source: Nikkei Asia |
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| World Population 2022. Source: Visual Capitalist |
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| World Population 2050. Source: Visual Capitalist |
Over 10 million Pakistanis are currently working/living overseas, according to the Bureau of Emigration. Before the COVID19 pandemic hit in 2020, more than 600,000 Pakistanis left the country to work overseas in 2019. Nearly 700,000 Pakistanis have already migrated in this calendar year as of October, 2022. The average yearly outflow of Pakistani workers to OECD countries (mainly UK and US) and the Middle East was over half a million in the last decade.
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| Consumer Markets in 2030. Source: WEF |
World's 7th Largest Consumer Market:
Pakistan's share of the working age population (15-64 years) is growing as the country's birth rate declines, a phenomenon called demographic dividend. With its rising population of this working age group, Pakistan is projected by the World Economic Forum to become the world's 7th largest consumer market by 2030. Nearly 60 million Pakistanis will join the consumer class (consumers spending more than $11 per day) to raise the country's consumer market rank from 15 to 7 by 2030. WEF forecasts the world's top 10 consumer markets of 2030 to be as follows: China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Russia, Brazil, Pakistan, Japan, Egypt and Mexico. Global investors chasing bigger returns will almost certainly shift more of their attention and money to the biggest movers among the top 10 consumer markets, including Pakistan. Already, the year 2021 has been a banner year for investments in Pakistani technology startups.
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| Pakistan Demographics |
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Fareed Zakaria
@FareedZakaria
Can India lift itself from the doldrums of a jobs crisis? Can the country grow rich before it grows old?
My conversation with Raghuram Rajan, former head of India’s central bank and coauthor of “Breaking the Mold: India’s Untraveled Path to Prosperity”
https://x.com/FareedZakaria/status/1792259556766105698
https://thefridaytimes.com/24-Nov-2023/pakistani-student-enrollment-in-germany-soars-by-30-percent
The educational landscape in Germany sees a dynamic transformation as Pakistani student enrollment surges by an impressive 30 percent. Statistics from the academic years 2020–21 to 2022–23 revealed a growth from 6,403 to 8,208 Pakistani students.
The German higher education sector, boasting a total enrollment of 458,210 international students as of 2022-2023, stands witness to this remarkable influx. Among these students, the discipline of engineering emerges as a beacon, with 145,707 individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds immersing themselves in the technical realms of innovation and progress.
More than 340 million people are now American citizens after 3.3 million moved to the US in 2024
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-population-census-bureau-migration-b2667901.html#
“An annual growth rate of 1.0 percent is higher than what we’ve seen over recent years but well within historical norms,” said Kristie Wilder, a demographer in the Census Bureau’s Population Division.
“What stands out is the diminishing role of natural increase over the last five years, as net international migration has become the primary driver of the nation’s growth.”
This year’s increase takes the total proportion of the population old enough to vote to 78.5 percent, equating to 267 million people, while the total number of American children (defined as those younger than 18) declined marginally by 0.2 percent to 73.1 million.
The data reveals that the American South remains the nation’s fast-growing region, adding nearly 1.8 million more residents this calendar year to record a population of 132.7 million, with the largest increases seen in Texas and Florida.
Overall, California remains America’s most populous state with 39.4 million people living there, followed by Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan.
Forty-seven states and the District of Columbia (DC) experienced population growth in 2024, with nine states – Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Texas and Washington – adding more than 100,000 people.
But the population of Puerto Rico continued to fall, albeit at a slower rate than in recent years, falling by just 0.2 percent to 3,203,295, compared with drops of 1.3 percent and 0.5 percent in 2022 and 2023 respectively.
Births meanwhile outnumbered deaths in 33 states and DC, with the highest natural increases seen in Texas (158,753), California (110,466) and New York (43,701).
The remaining 17 states saw more deaths than births, with Pennsylvania (-9,311), West Virginia (-7,844) and Florida (-7,321) experiencing the largest natural decreases.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/1278605-remittances-expected-to-surpass-35bn-in-fy25-analysts
KARACHI: Pakistan’s remittances are projected to exceed the central bank’s forecast of $35 billion for the fiscal year 2025, thanks to the country’s efforts to curb illegal foreign exchange trade, increasing citizens working abroad, and economic stability bolstered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout, according to analysts.
In a recent report, an analyst at Topline Securities estimates that remittances will reach $37 billion this fiscal year. He expects the country’s current account balance to breakeven, resulting in a surplus of 0.5 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) -- equivalent to approximately $0-2 billion -- primarily driven by higher-than-expected remittance inflows.
During the July-December period of FY25, remittances increased to $17.8 billion, representing a 33 per cent rise compared to the same period last year. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) projects total remittance inflows of $35 billion for this fiscal year, up from $30.3 billion in FY24.
Remittances play a vital role in supporting the country’s external account and foreign exchange reserves. Currently, the SBP’s forex reserves amount to $11.37 billion, sufficient to cover over two months’ worth of imports.
According to the SBP’s monetary policy statement, while the import bill has exceeded export earnings, remittance inflows have more than compensated for the widening trade deficit. Given these trends, particularly the strong remittance growth, the outlook for the current account balance has significantly improved. It is now expected to remain within a surplus or deficit of 0.5 per cent of GDP in FY25.
Saad Hanif, head of research at Ismail Iqbal Securities, anticipates that remittances will rise to between $34.8 billion and $35.5 billion in FY25. He noted that the increase in remittances can be attributed to several factors, including the growing number of people travelling abroad for work, the ease of using Roshan Digital Accounts (RDA), improved policy stability under the IMF programme, and a crackdown on illegal transfer channels such as ‘hundi’ and ‘hawala’. In the last two years, over 1.5 million Pakistanis have gone abroad for work, which has boosted remittance inflows. The ease and speed of banking services, particularly with the growth of RDAs and fintech, are encouraging the use of legal channels for remittances.
Tresmark, a financial terminal, stated in a note that surging remittances could be transformative for Pakistan’s economic viability, but certain misconceptions need to be addressed.
One common myth is that everyone in Pakistan is emigrating. However, data shows that emigration patterns from Pakistan align with trends observed in the region, including India and Bangladesh.
Another misconception is that Pakistan is experiencing greater remittance growth than other countries. The report clarifies that, over the past five years, remittance performance in Pakistan has been comparable to that of India and Bangladesh, although the trajectories have differed slightly.