Restraining Population Growth Chapter 31: Restraining Population Growth The last chapter of this report on Charter of the Economy is on Restricting Population Growth. This is a conscious decision. The large number of reforms and programs proposed in the previous chapters will either fail or meet with limited success unless the population growth rate comes down significantly. Projections by various international agencies are that if the population growth rate of the country remains unchanged then the pressure of population on resources will be virtually unmanageable. UNDESA projects that by 2050 the population could nearly double from the present level to 403 million. Visualizing this scenario is scary. This chapter tracks through the historical growth of population in Pakistan and compares this growth with the rate of increase in population in other South Asian and Islamic countries. The extent of population pressure already is quantified with the use of different indicators. The mechanisms and programs for population control are then identified, followed by recommendations. 31.1. Trend of Population Growth The size of population enumerated by different Censuses after the creation of Pakistan is presented in Table 31.1. The population growth rate reached a peak of 3.8 percent between 1961 and 1972. This was due to the in-migration of population from the Eastern wing of the country prior to its separation in 1971. Thereafter, the population growth rate has come down from 2.8 percent to 2.4 percent in the last inter-Census period of 1998 to 2017, but it remains high. The growth rate of rural population has also been coming down from 1972 onwards. It is down to 1.4 percent between 1998 and 2017. This has implied a higher rate of rural-urban migration and the urban population growth rate is high at close to 4 percent. By 2017, the share of urban population had approached 44 percent. 323