Bangladesh is a developing country in South Asia. Bangladesh, despite of its domestic and international efforts to improve economic and demographic aspects of the country, remains one of the most overpopulated and poorest nation. There are several major obstructions towards the economic growth of Bangladesh; frequent cyclones and floods are prevalent in Bangladesh, and a rapid growing population resulted to an increasing number of younger people in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is an agricultural country with the cultivation of rice being the most important activity. But since the population is increasing drastically, it cannot be absorbed by agriculture alone. And food-grain production is affected very badly due to severe floods thus resulting in poverty, lack of nutrition and severe pressure on the balance of payments.

Bangladesh is located between 20 34' and 26 38' North latitude and between 88 01' and 92 41' East longitude. It has an area of 56,977 square miles or 147,570 square kilometers. Bangladesh is bordered to the North, West and East by India and Burma. The Bay of Bengal lies in the South. The climate of Bangladesh consists of three main seasons: Winter from November to February, Summer from March to June, and Monsoon from July to October. The unit of currency in Bangladesh is the Taka (Tk.). Bangladesh had a GDP of 2049.27 Billion Tk. in 1999-2000. In the year 2000, it had a GNP per capita of Tk. 15,792 equivalent to an amount of US $314. (Singha, 2000). According to Rajendra (2001) the GINI index based on estimates of per capita consumption in urban areas was 0.36, in rural areas was 0.26. As of Jan 2001, total population was 123.1 million, male 62.7 million and females 60.4 million. Life Expectancy at birth (1998) was 61 for both sexes. (Singha, 2000). India has a larger and more improved economy than Bangladesh. In 2003, India had a GDP PPP of $577 billion equivalent to an amount of 29,019 billion Tk., its per capita GDP was $2870 which is 144,370 Tk. India had a population of 433 million living below the international poverty measurement of less than $1 per day in 2003. Bangladesh's economy is very small compared to that of India. Even though poverty exists in both of these countries, the GDP PPP per capita of this country compared to that of Bangladesh shows that India's living standard is far better than the living standard of Bangladesh.

The demographic transition model illustrated below gives the picture of the population change in Bangladesh in the 20th century. There are three stages of demographic transition that describes how the population of Bangladesh changed during that period. In Stage I of the demographic transition, that is, at the beginning of early 20th century, the number of total population in Bangladesh was less than 30 million. CBR and CDR were both high in that stage. People lacked knowledge of disease prevention and cure in the first stage. In Stage II of the transition we find the population had increased. The population increased to about 44 million with an annual growth rate of less than 1% until 1951. Infant Mortality Rate started to decline since early 1950s but fertility remained high. Due to this change in fertility and mortality, population started to grow in an extremely high rate and it remained that high about 2.5% in 60s and 70s. This decline in death rate was due to improvements in food supply as well as significant improvements in public health. The third and the final stage was the decline in growth rate in the 1980s, the growth rate at the closing of the 20th century was 1.5% with a population about 130 million. This transition occurred basically due to several reasons; such as, families were not taking more children for their comfort at old age. Female literacy had taken place that made women aware of the importance of education; they entered the school, work force, learnt more about motherhood and thus contributed a huge proportion to the production of the country. (Quibria, 1997)

Some demographics statistics of Bangladesh for the later 20th century is projected below.

Bangladesh had a high CDR of 11.4 per thousand in rural and 7.8 per thousand in urban areas in the year 1991, with a CBR of 32.9 per thousand in rural and 23.9 per thousand in urban area in the same year. TFR was also very high and so was IMR which was around 80 in 1991. Life expectancy for both sexes in the year 1991 was 56.1. In the year 1998, there was improvement in CDR, it lowered to 5.4 per thousand in rural and 3.7 in urban areas. CBR also fell; it became 21 per thousand in rural and 14 per thousand in urban areas. TFR fell slightly during this time. IMR improved drastically from around 80 in the year 1993 to 57 per thousand life birth in the year 1998. Life expectancy at birth also improved being 60.6 years of age for both sexes in the year 1998. (Irwin, 2002) Total Fertility Rate, that is the expected number of births per was 6.15 in the 70s. It started to decrease in the coming years; in 1990-1995 it was 4.45. TFR did fell at a good rate, at present in 2005, it is 3.46.

The population pyramid that shows the prediction of age and sex distribution for the year 2005 is illustrated below:

As we can see from the pyramid above, more number of children and teenagers are seen to cover up the majority of the population in Bangladesh, males are greater in numbers than females. There is very less number of elder people both males and females. Bangladesh has a Crude Birth Rate of 28.9 births per thousand people as projected from 2000-2005, a Crude Death Rate of 8.3 with a total population growth rate of 2 percent.

We will see from the diagrams below the trends of some of the demographics factors (CBR, CDR and TFR) in India and Bangladesh from the year 2000 until 2005. India has a Crude Birth Rate of 23.8 births per thousand people as projected from 2000-2005, a Crude Death Rate of 8.5. India has comparatively less number of births (3.01) per woman than Bangladesh (3.46) at present; also CDR is higher in India which is 8.5 at present than in Bangladesh which has a CDR of 8.3. (WRI, 2004)

The factors that contributed to a high TFR and CBR includes children being used as a source of inexpensive labor. In countries where agriculture practices predominate, and where subsistence farming mainly takes place, families tend to have larger families as larger family means more workers to the agricultural production. Lack of social security for the elderly in such developing country also made many families to have more number of children. These children serve as a caregiver and provider in future to the families. Bangladesh is one of the least urbanized countries in the world with only a fifth of the normal population living in urban areas. In 1991 20.15% of the nation's population lived in urban areas. The level of urbanization was 4.4% in 1951 and 5.2% in 1961. The urbanization rate was 2.32% in 1981 and 2.17% 1991. Bangladesh being one of the poorest countries in the world has a larger number of females than males in poverty. This is primarily due to the fact that women have little or no education; they are unaware of the benefits that they will receive due to education; and many dont think it is even necessary. Education level is very low as majority drops out from enrollment. Women in rural area usually take on to household duties at a very early age and get married earlier with no degree of education. Thus it leads to a higher fertility rate of population. (Irwin, 2002).

Food Security is a very important issue for all developing countries. At present 56 percent of school children are underweight in Bangladesh. There has been a declining trend in per capita dietary energy supply in Bangladesh. Even though Bangladesh made some progress in preventing stunting from 68 % in 1985 1986 to 51% in 1995-1996 and underweight from 71% to 56%, malnutrition remained a major health problem. (WHO, 30-34) These aspects towards food issue are also seen in India. Even though India is self sufficient in food grains, still one-third of India's one billion people live on daily diets that do not meet basic caloric needs. Half of India's children are malnourished in spite of India's adequate food production. This is mostly due to distributional problems, not having relief efforts in time of emergency and lack of education in agriculture. These problems have been addressed by the international aid organizations and they are working on them with the help and support of local people and organizations in India. Bangladesh and India, thus, are on the same stage in respect to poverty. (USAID, 2001).

Bangladesh had some change in per capita GDP over the last few decades. GDP of agriculture had reduced from around 50% in the early 1970s to just over 30% in recent years. Manufacturing section had not been a contributing factor to GDP in Bangladesh. Manufacturing had a share of only 10% in the recent years compared to the 30% share of agriculture and high share of about 52% by the service sector. As of 2003, Bangladesh had a GDP per capita after adjustment of inflation of $1290 and it had a per capita GNP of $220. The inflation rate during this period was 6.4% Even though Bangladeshs GDP had been growing very slowly but the economic growth had topped the 5 percent from 1966 to 1998 (Kazi, 2004). In 2003, India's GDP was $577 billion with a per capita GDP of $2870, far better than Bangladesh. India's economic growth topped over the past few year 2000-2002. (WRI, 2004). India and Bangladesh both have taken part in trading internationally; their major exports are agricultural products, jute, vegetables, tea etc. Nowadays garment factories and such other private institutions in Bangladesh are also contributing greatly to the exports.

In Bangladesh,

The annual rate of growth as a percentage is

Y_{1991 (1 + Y^{*) 10 = Y2001}}

Y*= (Y2001/Y1991)1/10-1

= ((140,880.00/112,117.00)1/10-1)*100

2.31%

The growth rate of population as a percentage is

N1991 (1 + N*)10 = N2001

N*= ((209928/ 116963)1/10-1)*100

= 6.02%

Income per capita is obtained as the ratio of the total income to the number of people: i.e.,

Since the denominator is growing faster than the numerator, it means the ratio is becoming smaller over time. The income per capita is decreasing over time.

The growth rate of income per capita can also be approximated by the difference between the growth rate of total income and that of population.

That is,

(Y/N)* = Y* - N*

= 2.31 - 6.02 = -3.71%

Levels of income per capita are:

(Y/N)1991= (Y1991/N1991)

= 0.9585681

(Y/N)2001 = (Y2001/N2001)

= 0.6710872

Since the total income is measured in million dollars while population in thousand people, these numbers are measured in million dollars per thousand people. We need to multiply these numbers by or

1000 to obtain income per capita in terms of dollars. Therefore, the income per capita is

In 1991,

(Y/N)1991= (Y1991/N1991) *1000

= (112,117.00/116,963)*1000

= 958.56809

In 2001,

(Y/N)2001 =(Y2001/N2001) *1000

= (140,880.00/209,928)*1000

= 671.08723

Now, an approximation to the average geometric annual rate of growth will be

(Y/N)*= ((Y/N2001)/(Y/N1991))1/10-1 * 100

=((671.08723/958.56809) ^ (1/10))-1)*100

=-3.502603

So we can the income per capita of Bangladesh is increasing. If the rate of growth in income per capita falls in the future, the birth rate is expected to fall. As income grows, more women will be studying in school and will be released from household chores. Higher education will lead them to join in workforce, they will have more job opportunities and they will earn higher income. In other words, the opportunity cost of having a baby will increase as income grows. At a higher level of income, more women choose not to have as many children as their predecessors have had. Thus, the total fertility rate will decrease and hence the crude birth rate will decrease.

The income elasticity of demand for food is 0.6. This means that demand for food will increase by 0.6% when income increases by 1%. When people have $100 and get an extra dollar, they will spend only 60 cents from that extra dollar on food.

As E is 0.6, N* is 6.02, (Y/N)* is -3.71, we have

D* = 6.02 + 0.6 * (-3.71)

= 3.80

For the past 10 year, we use indices of total food production in 1991 and 2001 to calculate the geometric average of annual growth rate in food supply. These indices represent food production in general.