Bali pledges to curb population growth

Bali provincial administration says it remains determined to boost family planning programs between 2010 and 2014 in a bid to lower population growth by 1.1 percent, an official said.

The head of the Bali branch of the National Family Planning Board (BKKBN), I Ketut Sutjita, said the administration planned to increase the legal marriage age from 18 years to 21 years. He said the administration was also looking to decrease its age-specific fertility rate to 30 per 1,000 women.

Bali’s population was estimated at 3.4 million in 2008. The Indonesian government will start conducting a new population census across the country in May to gather more precise data on the number of residents and the population growth rate.

Between 1980 and l990, Bali’s population growth reached 1.18 percent. The growth rate increased to 1.46 percent in 2005, higher than the national average of 1.29 percent.

“Bali’s population growth is still very high. We will work very hard to reduce the growth rate by intensifying family planning services in eight regencies and municipalities.”

The high population growth has been attributed to, among others, the influx of migrants from Java and neighboring islands.

Sutjita said family planning services would be provided for free for Bali residents.

In 2009, the number of additional active family planning participants reached 63,713, three percent of them were men. Bali’s total number of family planning participants is 547,438, surpassing the 2009 target of 470,050.

Sutjita said the administration also planned to cut the total fertility rate (TFR) to 2.1 and net reproductive rate to 1. The island’s TFR showed a decreasing trend from 5.96 children per woman in the l970s to 2.1 children per woman in 2007, below the national TFR of 2.3.