Population structure

• 30% of young dependents – Due to high birth rate (18/1000)
• 6% of old dependents – death rate (6/1000)

• Rapid ↑ working pop – not enough jobs – ↑ unemployment rate
• 24% live below poverty line, low living standard
• Insufficient money spent on education coz rate of pop growth faster than investment on education – ↓ education quality
• Half the population under 15years old, future birth rates will increase & so pop will continue to grow rapidly

• Anti-natalist policy (family planning / ↓ birth rate)
• Law-marriage age, women: 18, men: 21
• Support for full-time area health workers who provide contraception service
• Limit families to 2-3 children
• Improve women’s education
• Success? – In 1981: 18%, 2015: 60%
• Obstacles – Many women governed by purdah → can’t leave home without permission
• → difficult for health workers to contact

• 13% of old dependents – low death rate (8/1000)
• 19% of young dependents – low birth rate (12/1000)

• More pressure on economically active population due to the shortage of workforce in eg armed force
• Higher taxes as less economically active people is paying taxes to the gov
• More money spent on care for elderly/pension, healthcare (services eg ‘meals on wheels’ or charities eg ‘ Help the Aged’), less money spent on education & infrastructure
• Longer waiting lists for hospital treatments
• Less workforce, reduce productivity, GDP falls, limit economic growth
• Less innovative workforce
• Increase retirement age – ppl force to work longer
• There’re few young economically active people, low birth rate, meaning there’ll be a further decline in working pop in the future

• Pro-natalist population policy (↑birth rate)
• Assist families with living cost
• ↓ burden childcare costs
• Give benefits to ppl with children
• Relax visa rules → more immigrants get citizenship
• Expand economy to persuade ppl move to work
• Attract age 25-35 – educated, have work experience, long time till retirement
• ↑ retirement age (67 → 70) – ↑ working age group

Neighboring countries – India & Myanmar

Population – 160 million

Population density – 1000ppl/km²

Growth rate – 1.2%

• Lack of availability & knowledge of child cost & family planning
• Lack of access to contraceptives – 62% use contraception, which increases the risk of unintended pregnancies and fertility rate
• Most ppl are subsistence farmers → need many children as economic assets to help them work on the farms
• Many women are uneducated, don’t have a job. They have a early marriage – 1/3 girls married by 18 years old, women marrying earlier tend to have children earlier & bear more children over their lifetime
• No state pension → many children to take care when they’re old
• High infant mortality rate (30/1000 per year) so ppl have lots of children to replace those that die at a young age

• Improvement in
• Health care → ↓ child mortality
• Education
• Clean water supply
• Food supply
• Sanitation

• Shortage of job opportunities cause high unemployment. Consequently, 25% of the population living below the poverty line of $1.25 per day.
• Lack of education, housing, health care provision, due to the lack of sufficient resources to meet the needs of it’s the population, 13% of the population do not have access to clean water, which cause more people to suffer from water borne disease eg cholera. Also 33% of the children under 5 are underweight due to the lack of food supply
• Life expectancy is reduced to 52 years old as overcrowding cause diseases to be spread easily and lack of medical service
• Urban area → pollution from traffic congestion
• Over cultivation of land to grow crops to meet the demand of large pop reduces soil fertility, which reduces crop yield & leads to malnutrition for many ppl
• Unemployment → low standard of living, GDP: US$380

• Anti-natalist policy (family planning / ↓ birth rate)
• Law-marriage age, women: 18, men: 21
• Support for full-time area health workers who provide contraception service
• Limit families to 2-3 children
• Improve women’s education
• Success? – In 1981: 18%, 2015: 60%
• Obstacles – Many women governed by purdah → can’t leave home without permission
• → difficult for health workers to contact

Population – 24.6 million

Population density – 3ppl/km²

Growth rate – 0.4%

• High childcare cost
• Well-educated women
• 95% use of birth control methods

• Good health care, education, clean water supply, food supply, sanitation

• Less paying taxes / Not enough tax so the government lacks financial resources to invest in all the public services eg healthcare and education. This cause closure to public schools or hospitals as they cannot meet the threshold population, consequently, reduce the accessibility to public services
• Unsuccessful businesses
• Less innovation
• Gov services eg school doesn’t have enough ppl to meet threshold population
• Shortage of workers lead to lower optimum productivity, which limits Australia’s GDP. Also, resources are not able to be fully exploited eg outback is undeveloped and unused. Moreover, it is difficult to defend the 25000km coastline due to the lack of people in the defence force.
• To increase the workforce, the government encourages immigration of foreign workers by relaxing visa rules. However, this causes conflicts because many Australians do not want foreigners to interfere their work
• Rural urban migration occurs because people leaves the countryside for better opportunities in the cities eg Sydney. This causes more areas in outback to be left unused

• Pro-natalist population policy (↑birth rate)
• Assist families with living cost
• ↓ burden childcare costs
• Success? – Fertility rate still low. Women on average have 1.6 children, not enough to ↑ natural pop growth rate
• Give benefits to ppl with children
• Relax visa rules → more immigrants get citizenship
• Expand economy to persuade ppl move to work
• Attract age 25-35 – educated, have work experience, long time till retirement