Kathmandu, 28 Aug: The data of the last three years clearly shows the pace at which the birth rate is decreasing. The decreasing graph of births every year indicates the danger of a child crisis in Nepal.
According to statistics, 415,022 babies were born across the country in the fiscal year 2021/22. In the fiscal year 2022/23, that number decreased to 233,126.
The birth rate has dropped sharply to 190,692 in the fiscal year 2023/024. Statistics show that the birth rate has decreased by nearly 54 percent in this three-year period.
When these figures are calculated as daily births, 1,137 babies were born daily in the fiscal year 2021/22. However, this number decreased to 638 daily in the fiscal year 2022/023. In 2023/024, it decreased further to only 522 babies were born daily.
Now let’s look at the statistics of some other hospitals, including the Paropkar Maternity and Gynecology Hospital in Thapathali, which performs around 20,000 to 25,000 deliveries annually.
We looked at the birth rate ratio of the maternity hospital over the past four years. This also showed that the birth rate situation was worrying.
In the past, the government introduced policies like ‘small family, happy family’ to control population. Easy access to family planning and contraceptives made people aware of family size. The long-term impact of this policy was to establish a mindset of having fewer children in society.
Demographer Dr. Yogendra Bahadur Gurung says that the policy of saying two children is a gift from God and the awareness programs that were launched thereafter have been a major basis for reducing the birth rate.
According to him, in the past, the perception that ‘overpopulation is the cause of poverty’ was strong. To control this, the government put forward the slogan and policy of family planning.
As a result, the idea of ​​a small family is a happy family gradually established in society.
One of the main reasons for the increasing trend of limiting families to one child in Nepal is the economic activity of women. After starting a job or business, women do not want to have many children, which has a direct impact on the birth rate.
The high cost of quality education and the clear divide between the two classes in society have led today’s young generation to think that they will not be burdened in the future.
The situation not suddenly
The process of reducing birth and fertility rates in Nepal did not come suddenly. It has been gradually influenced by social, economic, and cultural changes over the past decades.
As the global population growth rate posed a challenge, various international conferences were held. At the Bucharest Conference in Romania in 1974, developed and developing countries discussed in depth the need for population control in countries with high fertility rates. At that time, the argument that high fertility rates lead to poverty was strong. The Mexico Conferences in 1984 and Cairo Conferences in 1994 respectively presented a global consensus and a new approach that put women’s reproductive rights at the center.
