Abstract:
Mortality is one of the most important vital events and it is a crucial indicator of
socio-economic development in any nation. It is said that socio-economic
development should be measured in terms of mortality. Bangladesh, a developing
country of South Asia, is experiencing significant decline in fertility and mortality in
the last few decades. Along with remarkable decline in early aged mortality,
senescence mortality also declined in the last decade. But, practically, the pace of
socio-economic development is not satisfactory compared with the pace of mortality
decline. Though, a common concept regarding mortality is that mortality decline is
the consequence of socio-economic development and conversely low mortality is also
a cause of ageing population problem. This study attempts to examine the trends,
differentials of mortality and modeling for mortality forecasting in Bangladesh. It has
also projected population using forecasted mortality to know its impact on population
in future.
Present study has revealed that female mortality declined somewhat faster than that of
male in both rural and urban areas. Initially male life expectancy at birth (e0) was
greater than that of female, later on it changes and female life expectancy at birth
becomes greater than that of male. A sharp decline in childhood mortality and old age
mortality is happened in last two decades. Similar declining trend of mortality has
evident in both rural and urban areas. Sensitivity analysis of life expectancy at birth
has shown that the childhood mortality and old age mortality have more effect than
other age group mortality to increase life expectancy. Decomposition analysis of
difference of mortality rate between different census periods has indicated that age
specific mortality rate effect is generally more attributable than age composition
population effect. Using mortality data from Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS),
this study forecasted life expectancy at birth for 40 years (2012-2051). The life
expectancy at birth will increased to more than 82 years for male and more than 86
years for female. During the whole projection period life expectancy at birth for
female is higher than that of male. The increasing pattern of life expectancy at birth is
similar in rural and urban areas. Population projection demonstrates that working age
population (15-59 or 15-64) will increase till 2021 and then decrease very slowly
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(almost stagnant) towards the rest of the period. In spite of a slow decline in working
age people after 2021, still there will be a huge number of working age people until
2051. The percentage of young age population (0-14) will decrease during the whole
projection period and the percentage of old age population (60+ or 65+) will increase
during the whole projection period which results a large number of elderly people.
In spite of remarkable decline in childhood mortality, it is still high compared to
developed countries. Finally, this study suggests that the increasing number of elderly
people would create ageing population problem in near future. Moreover, proper steps
should be needed to create job opportunity to employ the huge number of working age
population in various sectors of country’s economic development. Otherwise, they
will be the burden of the society and create social problems. At the same time, proper
health policy should be taken to provide healthcare facilities for the growing number
of population. The country also needs to think about suitable steps like pension
scheme, various allowances etc. for the elderly people.
Description:
This thesis is Submitted to the Population Science and Human Resource Development, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi, Bangladesh for The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)