PAKISTAN today stands at the edge of a demographic precipice.
Overpopulation has emerged as one of the most serious structural challenges confronting the country, aggravated by limited economic resources, weak governance and the absence of sustained political ownership. Despite repeated acknowledgments by successive governments, population control remains an area marked more by rhetoric than results.
The devolution of population welfare to the provinces under the 18th Constitutional Amendment was expected to bring localized solutions and improved outcomes. However, more than a decade later, there has been no meaningful improvement in Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) indicators or provincial population statistics. Pakistan continues to record one of the lowest and most stagnant contraceptive prevalence rates (CPR) in the region, highlighting a systemic failure rather than a lack of awareness.
A primary reason for this stagnation is the state’s inability to effectively persuade and facilitate citizens particularly those in rural areas to adopt family planning. Provincial governments and their relevant departments have failed to conduct sustained, meaningful outreach at the grassroots level. Instead, population-related events are often reduced to ceremonial seminars held in five-star hotels in collaboration with NGOs and international donors, yielding little measurable impact on behavior or outcomes.
For decades, political leadership has paid lip service to the population issue without demonstrating the courage or consistency required for reform. Periodically, bold statements surface declaring overpopulation a threat to Pakistan’s economy, food security and environmental sustainability. At other times, it is blamed for unemployment, extremism and social instability. Yet these acknowledgments rarely translate into concrete policy action.
The consequences are stark. Millions of educated young Pakistanis remain unemployed, while countless others leave the country in search of better opportunities abroad. Over 30 million children are out of school, the majority of them girls. Many fall into the vicious cycle of early marriage, resulting in higher fertility rates, while others are pushed into child labor or even prostitution due to poverty. It is an undeniable reality that poverty breeds overpopulation and overpopulation, in turn, entrenches poverty.
The situation is further compounded by economic decline. Purchasing power has eroded sharply, the rupee continues to depreciate and households are sinking deeper into debt. Agriculture once the backbone of rural livelihoods is in distress due to the absence of viable support prices. As rural populations migrate en masse to cities, unplanned urbanization intensifies pollution, congestion and pressure on already strained infrastructure.
Environmental degradation offers another grim illustration. In remote mountainous regions lacking access to gas or electricity, residents are forced to cut down trees for survival. This accelerates deforestation, contributes to glacial melt and worsens the effects of climate change yet another indirect cost of unchecked population growth.
The transformation of urban life vividly reflects this demographic explosion. In the 1980s, traffic congestion in major cities like Lahore was minimal, vehicles were few and roads were navigable. Today, cities are flooded with cars and motorcycles, often carrying entire families six or seven members on a single bike posing grave risks to life. Ironically, while the government enforces helmet fines, it turns a blind eye to blatant violations of traffic and safety laws, exposing the contradictions in governance.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect is the state’s inability to confront organized resistance to family planning. While the state demonstrates strength against political opposition, it remains hesitant to challenge religious lobbies that misuse religion to oppose population control despite clear regional examples to the contrary. Muslim-majority countries such as Bangladesh, Iran, Turkey and Morocco have successfully increased CPR, reduced fertility rates and stabilized population growth without compromising religious values.
I recall convening Pakistan’s first-ever international conference on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4, 5 and 6 in 2014 during my tenure as Executive Director of the National Institute of Population Studies (NIPS). The initiative fully financed by UNFPA brought together experts from China, Bangladesh, Nepal, Iran, Morocco and India to share successful population strategies. The conference was held with minimal bureaucratic hurdles, yet its outcomes were never institutionalized. Once again, the opportunity was lost due to policy inconsistency and lack of follow-through. This recurring pattern raises a fundamental question: if policies are not implemented consistently, who bears responsibility for failure?
The Way Forward: Urgent Policy Measures: To defuse Pakistan’s population bomb, the following steps are imperative: (i) Declare a Family Planning Emergency and implement actions on a war-footing basis, (ii) Ensure full political ownership at federal and provincial levels,
(iii) Introduce mandatory pre-marital counseling, with marriage hall bookings linked to clearance from a competent panel, (iv) Prioritize rural communities, employing lady doctors and midwives from the same localities, (v) Introduce incentives for a two-child norm, such as utility subsidies, concessional loans or social benefits, (vi) Engage the IMF and development partners to support population-control subsidies, (vii) Standardize the legal age of marriage across all provinces, (viii) Strictly prohibit and penalize early marriages, (ix) Allocate 4–6% of GDP to education and health, with a special focus on girls’ education and (x) Launch sustained media campaigns, including television dramas, to normalize family planning.
Additionally, long-term success requires: (a) Education-based interventions, including responsible family planning awareness and girls’ education, (b) Expanded access to contraceptives and maternal healthcare, (c) Economic empowerment, especially for women social security systems that reduce reliance on large families and (d) Voluntary, rights-based community programs that respect cultural sensitivities.
Pakistan possesses the knowledge, regional examples and institutional frameworks required to control population growth. What remains absent is the political will to act consistently and courageously. Without it, overpopulation will continue to undermine governance, economic stability and social cohesion at a cost the country can no longer afford.
—The writer is former Executive Director, National Institute of Population Studies, (NIPS).
