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Sri Lanka Population
During the early nineteenth century, the population of Sri
Lanka was small and concentrated in the southwestern part of the
island and in the Jaffna Peninsula in the north. The first
official census, conducted by the British in 1871, recorded a
total population of 2.8 million. Between then and the 1980s, the
population increased sixfold. Population growth until around 1900
was given impetus by considerable immigration from southern
India, as the British brought in hundreds of thousands of Tamils
to work the plantation economy. These immigrants accounted for an
estimated 40 to 70 percent of the population increase during the
nineteenth century. Another significant factor in the growth of
population after 1900 was a decline in mortality rates
(see Sri Lanka - Health
, this ch.). The period of fastest growth was the decade
after independence, when the annual rate of increase was 2.8
percent. The official total in the 1981 census was 14,846,750,
and some projections suggested a total of 18 million by 1991 and
between 20 and 21 million by 2001. Furthermore, if the 1980s
trends continue, the population will double in forty years (see
table 2, Appendix).
Although the increase in the number of people remained a
major problem for Sri Lanka, there were indications in the 1980s
that the country had moved beyond a period of uncontrolled
population expansion into a pattern similar to that of more
industrialized nations. The crude fertility rate declined from
5.3 in 1953--at the height of the postindependence baby boom--to
3.3 in 1981. Emigration, which outpaced immigration after 1953,
also contributed to the decline in population growth. Between
1971 and 1981, for example, 313,000 Tamil workers from the
plantation areas emigrated to south India. Increased employment
opportunities in the Arab nations also attracted a substantial
annual flow of workers from Sri Lanka (a total of 57,000 in 1981
alone). The lowering of the population growth rate was
accompanied by changes in the age distribution, with the older
age-groups increasing, and by the concentration of people in
urban areas. Those phenomena also accompanied lower population
growth in Europe and the United States.
Population is not uniformly spread but is concentrated within
the wet zone and urban centers on the coast and the Jaffna
Peninsula. The country's mean population density--based on 1981
census data--was 230 persons per square kilometer, but in Colombo
District density was 2,605 persons per square kilometer. In
contrast, the dry zone districts of Vavuniya, Mannar,
Mullaittivu, and Moneragala had fewer than fifty-five persons per
square kilometer. One reason for the unequal settlement pattern
was the rainfall distribution, which made it possible for the wet
zones to support larger village farming populations. Another
reason was the slow but steady concentration of people in urban
centers during the twentieth century. The ratio of Sri Lankans
living in cities increased from 11 percent in 1871 to 15 percent
in 1946 and 21.5 percent in 1981.
By 1985 a slowly declining crude birth rate hinted at a
gradual aging of the population and changed requirements for
social services (see
table 3, Appendix). For the time being,
however, there was considerable pressure for jobs, education, and
welfare facilities from the large number of people who were
raising families or pursuing careers. In the remaining decades of
the century and beyond there was likely to be greater pressure
for housing and health care for an aging population.
Urbanization has affected almost every area of the country
since independence. Local market centers have grown into towns,
and retail or service stores have cropped up even in small
agricultural villages. The greatest growth in urban population,
however, has occurred around a few large centers. In 1981 the
urbanized population was 32.2 percent in Trincomalee District and
32.6 percent in Jaffna District, in contrast to the rural
Moneragala District where only 2.2 percent of the people lived in
towns. Colombo District, with 74.4 percent urban population,
experienced the largest changes. Between 1881 and 1981, the city
of Colombo increased its size from 25 to 37 square kilometers and
its population from 110,502 to 587,647.
Since independence was granted in 1948, there have been four
main trends in migration. First, every year more people move from
rural areas to the cities. Second, the cities have changed from
concentrated centers to sprawling suburbs. During the 1970s, the
city of Colombo actually lost population, mostly to neighboring
cities in Colombo District. Part of the suburban growth has
resulted from a planned strategy to reduce urban congestion. For
example, a new parliamentary complex opened in Sri
Jayewardenepura in the suburb of Kotte east of Colombo in 1982
(although Colombo is still considered the national capital). Much
of the growth, however, has been the unplanned proliferation of
slums inhabited by poor and unskilled masses and lacking public
utilities or services. Third, government irrigation projects
attracted many farmers from the wet zone to the pioneer
settlements in the dry zone. During the decade ending in 1981,
the highest rates of population increase occurred in the
districts of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, where the Mahaweli
Garga Program attracted immigrant farmers. Fourth, SinhaleseTamil ethnic struggles displaced many people during the 1970s and
1980s. During a Tamil repatriation program in the 1970s, large
numbers of Tamil plantation workers left for India or moved out
of the hill areas toward the north and the east. After the
intensification of communal fighting in 1983, an estimated
100,000 Tamil refugees fled to India, where they lived in refugee
camps in Tamil Nadu State, and thousands more were relocated
through refugee agencies in Sri Lanka
(see Sri Lanka - The Tamil Insurgency
, ch. 5). During the counterinsurgency operations of the Sri Lankan
and Indian armies in 1987 and 1988, many residents of the Jaffna
Peninsula fled their homes for temporary shelter in refugee camps
(see Sri Lanka - The Armed Forces
, ch. 5).
As in South Asia as a whole--and in contrast to global
patterns--Sri Lankan males outnumbered females in the mid-1980s.
In Sri Lanka, for every 100 female births registered there were
104 males. In the past, the gender ratio of the general
population was even more unequal--113 men to 100 women in 1941.
In part, this imbalance is attributed to the emigration of
plantation workers, many of whom were men. Much of the change,
however, may be due to a growing sensitivity to the health of
women. Since 1963, the average female life expectancy has
increased by seven years, while male life expectancy has risen by
three years.
Data as of October 1988
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