POPULATION GROWTH IN ASIA AFTER SECOND WORLD WAR

According to world data sheet 2003, 60.67 percent of the world population lived in Asia. Asia is the house of 75 percent of those living in developing regions. Asia's share to the world population is likely to come down to 58.5 percent in 2050. Six out of 10 most populous countries are in Asia. These countries are China 1304 million, India 1065 million, Indonesia 220 million, Pakistan 154 million Bangladesh 146 million and Japan 128 million.

The population growth rate was 2.0 percent per-year in 1950-55 in this continent and reached a high of 2.4 percent in 1965-70, gradually declining thereafter. The estimated growth rate in 2000-5 is 1.3 percent. Average Crude Death Rate in Asia has reached nine per thousand populations. But Afghanistan the Crude Death Rate is 21 per thousand, death rates in all other countries are below 14. Kuwait and UAE have attained Crude Death Rate 2, probably lowest anywhere in the world. Afghanistan has the highest Crude Birth Rate 47 per thousand in the continent. Yemen's Crude Birth Rate 45 per thousand and few other countries still have exceedingly high birth rate with the result that these countries are still growing at an alarming rate, beyond  3 percent. Both Crude Birth Rate and Crude Death Rate vary considerably between sub-region and between countries in the same-regions. Death rates in most countries have stabilized at a much lower level.

Asia has the second highest current growth rate, only after Africa. Much of the decline in population growth rate in Asia is attributable to drastic reduction of fertility in China. From per year growth rate around 1.8 percent in China, the same in 2000-5 is estimated to have come down to only 0.7. There has been a birth rate reduction by 8-10 points after 1980. Between 1965-70 and 1980-85 the aggressive birth reduction policy in China brought down the per year growth rate from 2.9 to 1.5 percent, nearly a 50 percent reduction just in 20 years. Current growth rate in China is likely to be around 0.5 percent per year.  

Fertility has decline substantially in most of the major Asian countries from seventies in the last century and more countries have joined them since the eighties. Average birth rate has fallen from 28-31 in the eighties to about 21 in 2000-5. Crude Death Rate in the eighties was already in 10-11 brackets. It has dropped by another 3-4 points in the last 20 years. However, mortality under age 5 and IMR are still quite high. By the mid-eighties the life expectancy in many countries reached 60 years. The current life expectancy on average is estimated at 67 years. Japan has the highest expectation of life, 82 years.

Both Young Age Dependency and old Age Dependency in Asia are very close to world average. Population density is highest in the Asian continent per 120/km square. Except Western Asia, the map is almost the same in all sub-regions in this regard. The range of urbanization varies widely. All the countries in Eastern Asian except China have very high urban population, between 57 and 100 percent like Hong Kong. The proportion of urban population is considerably low in Asia. In India, Pakistan and Bangladesh has an average of 31 percent of the population living in urban areas. Bhutan is the only country in the region which has single digit proportion of urban population.