DGFP

Bangladesh has achieved success in family planning programs against the backdrop of low literacy rate, low status of women, low income and so on. Despite this, one must note that due to past high fertility and falling mortality rates, Bangladesh’s population has a tremendous growth potential built into its age structure. So, population continues to remain as the most pressing challenge towards development as well as one of the major causes of poverty in Bangladesh. The Government has recognized that a massive population forms an obstacle to economic development, and has developed the National Population Policy which seeks to reduce fertility to replacement level by 2015. This requires a further TFR decline of 0.3 children per couple. But even at replacement fertility, the country will be adding two million annually to the population. Many scholar’s in the population field, feel that the decline needs to be greater (i.e., to TFR 1.7) projected to have substantial benefits across many sectors. It will not fall any lower, so all future population growth will be determined entirely by the fertility level.