According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the world population will surpass 7 billion ‘milestone’ on Monday and despite major decline in the average of children per woman, the population will continue to swell at least till the middle of the 21st century.

Pakistan’s population in the mid-2011 was estimated to be 177.1 million – higher by 2.1 per cent than the last year’s. The country’s population has been growing at a decelerating pace but still Pakistan has one of the highest population growth rates in the world.

With a growth rate of 2.05 per cent a year and an annual addition of three million persons Pakistan faces a challenge to address the issues of poverty reduction and economic development.

Such an annual addition to the overall size of population against the backdrop of low socio-economic indicators not only dilutes the results of development efforts but also puts pressure on the country’s limited resources.

It also allows little progress in the field of social services such as health, housing, clean water, food and nutrition and sanitation.

According to official statistics, Pakistan is going to become young as 60 per cent of its population is between 15 and 65 years of age. The expected, gradual shift to a youthful age structure is because of decline in birth and death rates.

Pakistan is grouped with countries having moderate level of urbanisation; but it has the highest share of population living in urban areas among the South Asian countries.It has also been projected that about half of Pakistan’s population will be livingin cities by 2030.

The UNFPA says the world’s 7 billion milestone “is a challenge, an opportunity and a call to action”.

Of the world’s seven billion, 1.8 billion are young people between the age of 10 and 24 who hold the key to the future with the potential to transform the global political landscape and to propel economies through their creative activity and capacitiesfor innovation.

Today, 42 per cent of the world’s population lives in low-fertility countries, that is countries where women are not having enough children to ensure that on average each woman is replaced by a daughter who survives till the age of procreation.

Another 40 per cent lives in intermediate-fertility countries where each woman is having, on average, between 1 and 1.5 daughters, and the remaining 18 per cent lives in high-fertility countries where the average woman has more than 1.5 daughters.