Zambia - Demography
Zambia’s population continues to increase rapidly. It had a population of 5,680,000 at the census of September 1, 1980. According to the 2000 census, the total population was 9.9 million people—up from 5.7 million in 1980. The 2009 population was estimated to be almost 13 million people and may have been growing at about 3.0 percent per year. Zambia is a high-fertility, rapid population growth country with a youthful age structure. About 39.2% of the population lives in the urban areas making Zambia one of the highly urbanized countries within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.
The population is going to continue to grow rapidly despite the HIV epidemic. The HIV/AIDS epidemic is ravaging Zambia. Approximately 14.3% of Zambians are infected by HIV. Over 800,000 Zambian children have lost one or both of their parents due to HIV/AIDS. Life expectancy at birth is 38.63 years.
In the first yeas after independence, there was no explicit and coherent statement of population policy in Zambia. It may be said that population policies were unknowingly embedded in various actions of government, which obscured their existence as a distinct set of policies. The reciprocal influence between development actions and demographic variables was evident.
During the colonial days there was no centralized development planning and demographic variables were thus not seen in relation to development. Population was still not included as a component of development planning in the early years of independence. Bythe 1970s, there was increased awareness of the interaction of population and economic development. The 2nd National Development Plan (1972-76) incorporated important demographic variables (growth rate, future population size, estimates of current and future school and working-age populations) and recognized rapid growth and population pressures on social services as population problems. Specific policies to resolve these problems were not proposed.
In his speech at the 2nd African Conference on the Integrated Family Planning, Nutrition and Parasite Control Project (PANFRICO) held in Lusaka, Zambia on March 7-13, 1989, Zambian president, Kenneth D. Kaunda stated that rapid increase in population severely affected socio- economic growth in Africa. He also stated that adolescent pregnancies inhibit the contribution of women in Africa to socio-economic development.
As adolescents had little knowledge of or access to family planning, this increased the rate of maternal and infant mortality. Lack of data available to young people, in addition to lack of data on the trends of young people, increased the government's ignorance of present situations and the adolescent ignorance of family planning. Personal and religious beliefs also interfered with implementing radical programs which would encourage adolescents to seek family planning.
In order to overcome these obstacles, attention needed to be focused on the four following area: providing family education and family planning counseling; provide educational and employment opportunities as alternatives to adolescent pregnancy; increase population awareness of fertility related problems facing teens; and providing all types of support for programs aimed at young women.
In Africa, Zambia, as well, population rates had far out grown socio-economic development. Governments responded by stepping up family planning efforts by integrating family planning organization with health ministries.
In the 1980s, Zambia recognised that a slower rate of population growth would allow the government to serve the people better, as greater resources would be available to educate students and provide healthcare to those in need and to spur social and economic growth. Hence, population growth issues started to receive explicit mention in Zambia’s national policies and plans. Most notably, in 1989, Zambia adopted a National Population Policy. While policymakers and advocates were successful in bringing population issues to the national forefront, fertility and population growth rates have remained high since that time.
In 2007, the country revised the National Population Policy, with a goal of improving the quality of life of Zambians by improving population trends to support social and economic development. Zambia continued to have high birth rates and a fast-growing population. At the current rate of growth, the population would double in size in about 23 years.
Vision 2030 sets the long-term national development agenda. The vision is for Zambia to become a prosperous middle-income nation by 2030. To achieve this status, the stated social and economic development objectives include decelerating the annual population growth rate from its 2005 rate of 2.9 percent to a rate of less than 1.0 percent over 25 years.
Zambia has a young population because birth rates have been high for a long time. An estimated 46 percent of the population is under the age of 15. Zambia’s young age structure has important population and development implications. It places a heavy burden on the working age population to provide for the large number of dependants and constrains the provision of basic needs and social services.
The young age structure creates a powerful momentum for future population growth. Today’s children will soon grow into their reproductive years. Because so many couples will be having children, population growth will continue even if fertility declines rapidly. Due to high fertility and population momentum, it is probable that the Zambian population will continue to grow for most of the remainder of the 21st century, even if fertility rates decline.
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