Zambia’s population growing rapidly

By Brenda Zulu

The Zambian population has been growing rapidly for a long period of time.  According to the Zambia Population Factors and National Development under the Ministry of Finance and National Planning, the population grew from only about 2.3 million persons in 1950 to 9.9 million at the time of 2000 census.

According to the 2010 census report, the population of Zambia is now at 13.4 million. Third high population growth is in part due to Zambia’s high fertility rate as Zambian women have 6.2 children each, on average  one of the higher levels of fertility in Africa. Because fertility has been high for a long time, Zambia has a very young population. About 46 % of the population is under the age of 15.

The health sector already faces severe human resource and infrastructure shortages. Zambia aims to reduce the population growth. For example, the long term goal is one nurse for everyday 700 persons in the population. In that case, the nursing cadre would need to increase from 9 200 in 2007 to 47 100 in 2037 a fivefold increase if high fertility continues.

Declining fertility would reduce the severity of the nursing shortages in 2037, 33, 700 nurses would be required be required with declining fertility. The country would also need fewer health centers and other facilities and could save in health expenditures. If saving is reinvested, Zambia could move closer to achieving a level of health expenditure per capita comparable with middle income economies.

What does a growing population mean to a Zambian family?

A rapid population increase will place a greater burden at a household in terms of housing and the need for employment to help sustain a family. In particular this pressure will exacerbate the already poor living conditions for low income populations and people in urban slums, who face overcrowding, inadequate shelter, lack of clean water and adequate sanitation and increased vulnerability to exploitation and abuse.

As evidenced in other countries declining fertility and a slower rate of population growth can contribute to economic transformation by creating conditions for greater saving and investment,  more educational opportunities,  and modernized agriculture. The Zambian vision to becoming a middle income country can best be achieved a combination of fast economic growth and slower rate of population growth.

In terms of policy response there is need for family planning education to help couples voluntarily plan and space birth as an important intervention to reduce fertility. However, contraceptive use in Zambia needs to increase and at the same time Zambia Demographic Health Survey reports a high level of unmet need for family planning. About 26.5 % of married women of reproductive age want to space or limit birth but were not using contraceptives.

To satisfy unmet need, Zambian couples who want to space or limit their birth needs access to choice of contraceptive consistently available at affordable prices. Public policies and programmes can be adopted to help satisfy unmet need. Political and other leaders, planners and programme implementers can all contribute to these efforts. By moving to satisfy current unmet need, Zambia will be on track to achieve lower fertility. In the end, good demographic outcomes depend on good policies that empower individuals and couples to make free choices.

Zambia’s young population

The young population age structure means, on the one hand, than the dependency burden will continue to be high as the working age population has to support large number numbers of child, young and old age dependents. This can retard the process of economic growth and present challenges for achieving poverty reduction and other MDGs. The youthful structure also means that demographic momentum is likely to continue to swell population numbers while spurring massive migration within and between countries. This has implications for environmental depletion, political stability and the inception.