NATURAL RESOURCES OF SRI LANKA

22
Year
1953
1963
1971
1974
1981
1987
1.5
1
0.5
POPULATION PROFILE
Projected Population Growth Rates
Avarag* Annual Rat« of Growth
-
0
198 I-86 86-91 91-96 96-2001 01-06
Period
Total Fertility Rate
5.3
5.0
4.2
3.5
3.3
Figure 3.2
Rapid population growth during the past decades,
slow economic growth, and problems of unemployment
and productivity have determined governmental policy
on population. Policies that provide family planning
information and contraceptive services contribute to
continued decline marital fertility. Population projections
constructed in 1988 assumed a linear total fertility
decline to 2.1 by 2011, slightly lower than projected in
1985. Some projections have been based on a fertility
decline to 2.1 by the year 2000, based on findings of high
motivation among" married couples to reduce fertilty
rates. It is important to note that projections in this
analysis, however, assume that total fertility will remain
stable throughout the period of projection.
2.8
Figure 3.3
06-11
Mortality
11-16 16-21 21-26
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Until the 1940s the crude death rate remained at
high levels, reaching 30 per thousand in some decades •
(1911-1920). Several reasons have been cited: "... wide- •
spread prevalence of endemic and epidemiological diseases,
inadequate curative preventive health services, I
low standards of living, high illiteracy rates and igno- *
ranee of simple health rules among the mass of the
people" (ESCAP 1974). Improvements in health and I
sanitation services and in living standards and literacy
levels reduced the live death rates to approximately 23 -^
per thousand by 1930. The malaria eradication pro-1
gram, improvement of health infrastructure and provision
of basic services made it possible to achieve a sharp _
decline in mortality in the mid-1940s. Between 19461
and 1947 the crude death rate declined from 20 per
thousand to 14 per thousand, and it has continued to «m
decline to 6 per thousand. Life expectancy at birth I
increased from 44 years for males and 42 years for
females in 1946, to 64 years for males and 68.8 years for
females by 1971. The life expectancy further increased
to 65.6 for males and 69.9 for females according to data
for 1978-1980.
The crude death rate will probably not decline
further. As fertility declines and the population ages,
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