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Much to their dismay, the adverse impact multiplies for developing countries, so much so that it could strike the very socio-economic balance of these country to a great degree. A good number of demographic studies conclude that scores of Least Developed Countries (LDC) with an overwhelmingly young population could face humongous problems in coping with the youth bulge. While some countries have been able to capitalize on demographic dividend by transforming the population into a skilled workforce and providing them with opportunities, the presence of a huge cluster of an unskilled youth with not many employment opportunities holds the possibility of falling easy prey to criminality and socio-political imbalances.
Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Libya are often cited as recent examples of in this instance.
Looking at the Bangladesh scenario, despite the declining birth rates, the population of Bangladesh continues to increase due to the low death rates and the momentum of the population from the previous stage. Evidently, the country has made strides in rebuilding the socio-economic layout ever since its liberation.
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Bangladesh, the once called ‘basket case’ economy, rose sharply in recent years with commendable progress in terms of youth development. The reduction of fertility and the recent economic and social development of the country has brought a significant change in the role played by the women for the society and country. Particularly the girls of the young population are not more defined in the conventional role of homemaking and bringing up children. However, empirical evidence indicates that still there are significant gender differences in almost all spares of the society that is still plagued with many problems such as illiteracy, unemployment, malnutrition and poverty.
The traditionally patriarchal gender system institutionalized inequalities and discriminations based on gender (Mahmud & Johnstone, 1994). To a great extent, women are still confined by the boundary of their body, while men dominates everywhere, from economy to politics and legislation to household.
Because the demographic dividend is only momentary and does not last forever, it in fact provides a window of opportunity with a limited time to reap. After a certain period of time, the age distribution starts to change again, as the large adult population moves into the older, less-productive age brackets, followed by a smaller cohort of youth and a large ratio of dependent population to be carried by the former. As a result, the dependency ratio starts to rise again, while the productive portion declines and creates socio-economic pressure. Besides, as mentioned earlier, the dividend is not automatic. It has been evident that whe the demographic pressures are eased wherever fertility falls, some countries take better advantage of the new population structure than others. Successful are the ones who act to capitalize upon the demographic resources and use them effectively for its benefits. However, for countries failing to harness the demographic dividend, when the window of opportunity closes, they face renewed pressures and that too in a position weaker than ever.
How does gender interact with population dynamics? Demographic studies focusing on gender indicate that gender inequality directly reduces economic growth and the effectiveness of the demographic dividend (ICRW, 2018). Yet, educated women suffer from the highest level of unemployment in Bangladesh despite a quota for women in public service and many private organizations’ claim of being equal opportunity employers. The unemployment rate among female graduates is about 2.5 times more than their male counterparts: 16.8 percent (BBS, 2016). Such a high level of unemployment prevails at a time when increasing number of women are enrolling at universities and economic activities are expanding both in private and public sector. There are still stark disparities in terms of gender in many other spheres of the society. Lack of safety and security, sexual harassment and violence against women, unfriendly work environment and women's preference to do certain kinds of jobs are also blamed for high unemployment among the educated female workforce. Economists and government executives blamed a host of factors behind the higher unemployment among women including a lack of interest among employers to hire women in white-collar jobs and negative social norms, while there are strong discrepancies which has been prevailed against women for decades in the form of gender role. Attitude and expectation regarding women’s role in the household and society are widely confined by the oppressive patriarchal norms and beliefs.
This is to be noted that the demographic dividend in many developing countries remains a possibility, but for the process to begin, countries need to give high priority to substantially lowering fertility and child mortality through equally investing in needs of both men and women, while prioritizing gender equality in all spheres of society to reap the benefits of the dividend. Unlike transition, gender implication of population dynamics cannot be quantified accurately. It has to be studied through collecting comprehensive first-hand data on the attitudinal and behavioral patterns of the people. Looking at attitudes of the people as expressed through behavior, an attempt has been made in this study to search for people’s perception on gender
Prioritizing Gender Equality In All Spheres. (2022, Jun 03). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/prioritizing-gender-equality-in-all-spheres-essay
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