OTHER PUBLICATION - PAPUA NEW GUINEA’S - SLOW DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION SINCE 1950: A COMPARATIVE

The legislation states that the functions of the PNG NRI are: (a) The promotion of research into Papua New Guinea society and the economy; and, (b) The undertaking of research into social, political and economic problems of Papua New Guinea in order to enable practical solutions to such problems to be formulated. [...] At the beginning of the process, the birth and death rates of the country are similarly high but with the birth rate sufficiently above the death rate to produce a slow rate of population growth; by the end of the process, birth and death rates have reached low levels but are also in a near equilibrium state, once again resulting in a slow rate of population growth. [...] With the demographic transition model in the background, this paper describes the long-term trends in the three demographic variables that reflect the demographic evolution of Papua New Guinea (PNG), and compares them with the South-east Asian country of Laos. [...] While the current growth rate of the PNG population is not known precisely, estimates based on intercensal change (2000-2011) and the estimated birth and death rates at the time of the 2011 Census suggest that the rate could be within the range of 2.6 to 3.1 percent. [...] The crude birth rate is not a perfect measure of fertility because it can be affected by the age structure of the population.3 As a measure of the fertility transition, the TFR is a more accurate indicator because it is not affected by the age structure.4 As can be seen in Figure 5, PNG’s TFR shows a very similar trend to the crude birth rate.