Behind each number is a woman who survived poverty and social pressure, only to lose her life bringing another life into the world. Pakistan’s population crisis is frequently discussed in macroeconomic terms, as a drag on GDP or a strain on public services. What receives far less attention is where this crisis lands most violently, which is on the bodies of women who have little say over how many children they carry or how far apart those pregnancies fall.
The Population Council’s findings are specific enough to demand a concrete policy response. Raising contraceptive prevalence from the current 41% to just 59% would save approximately 2,300 maternal lives and prevent around 73,000 infant deaths annually. Punjab’s population is growing at 2.53% a year, and infant mortality stands at 73 deaths per 1,000 live births — figures that place Pakistan well behind neighbours like India and Bangladesh. Rapid population growth places increasing pressure on already strained public services, and healthcare systems that cannot adequately serve current populations will not cope with the demographic momentum already locked in. Without focused intervention, the system will not reform itself — it will simply collapse more slowly.
Pakistan has debated population policy for decades and produced little beyond targets it never meets. What is required now is not another framework but a shift in political will, one that treats women’s reproductive autonomy not as a cultural concession but as a public health imperative. A country that cannot keep its mothers alive has no credible claim to being on the path to development.