Kenyans love for large families will be their undoing in attaining quality life, demographers have warned. Securing economic growth and realising some of the Vision 2030 objectives, will remain a pipe dream in the face of the growing population, Providing quality health, education and social services will be extremely difficult unless Kenyans tame their preference for large families, says a report. “The demand for children is still high and is unlikely to change unless substantial changes in desired family size are achieved. There is need for a rapid decline in fertility and a substantial increase in labour productivity,” says the latest Kenya population report compiled by leading demographers. Vision 2030 aims at reducing the average number of children per woman from the current 4.6 per cent to 2.6, but the objective may fail unless families have fewer children. “Though the total fertility rate for the country is 4.6 when broken down to regions, North Eastern has even a higher rate of around seven children per woman. This is too high for a developing country like Kenya,” a University of Nairobi don at the Population Studies and Research Institute, Mr Ben Jarabi said. The warning follows the World Bank’s recent warning that Kenya’s economy is under-performing compared to its sub-Saharan peers. The World Bank said that many African countries whose GDP per capita was below Kenya’s in 1980, including some of East African Community member states, were rapidly catching up with it. It cites Ethiopia, which in 1990 had a GDP per capita of 28 per cent that of Kenya. In 2011, it was 48 per cent. The bank also said the high population increase, which averages about one million people a year, was making it difficult to achieve double-digit economic growth rates key to transform the country into a middle-income state. According to Mr Jarabi, the absolute size of the youthful population grew from about two million in 1969 to six million in 1999 and 7.9 million in 2009, making it 21 per cent of the total population. “These youth need social services, food, shelter and jobs, which is proving difficult for the government to adequately provide,” the University of Nairobi lecturer noted. Poverty and culture were cited as factors persuading many girls to marry early, increasing the chances of youth having more children and perpetuating the cycle of poverty. However, the percentage of 15- and 19-year-olds who have begun giving birth declined from 16.8 per cent in 1993 to 14.8 in 2008. Demographers maintain, however, hat this is still too high.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 05:26:21 +0000