Demand Side of Pakistan’s Population Welfare Programme

Because of a continuously moderate decline in mortality specially during the first two decades of the twentieth century and more remarkably after the Second World War, the population of developing countries, including Pakistan, grew faster over time. High rates of population growth and the characteristics associated with it constituted a serious challenge to desired economic development in these countries [United Nations (1973)]. It was for these reasons that a number of developing countries in the process of development considered and adopted as part of their development efforts a population policy aimed at reducing the rate of population growth through fertility decline. In the early 1960s, few countries including Pakistan considered family planning programmes as an integral part of their development policies. By the end of 1960, family planning programmes had been initiated in many developing countries and such programmes became an integral part of the national plans [Freedman and Berelson (1976)]. By the mid-1970s, it was observed that many developing countries had succeeded in enhancing their programme activities and in achieving contraceptive use which was responsible for reducing fertility levels in those countries. However in many developing countries, including Pakistan, the family planning programmes could not achieve a breakthrough in contraceptive use and fertility decline although the programmes had been ambitiously pursued there for more than a decade [Frinkle and Crane (1975) and Berelson (1975)].