Fiji Islands Population Profile Based on 1996 Census: A Guide for Planners and Policy Makers

Date:   1999

Source:    Fiji Islands Population Profile Based on 1996 Census: A Guide for Planners and Policy Makers. Noumea. Secretariat of the Pacific Community, 1999. ISBN –982-203-715-5

Subject:    population statistics, demography, population policy

`This profile provides an overview of Fiji’s population at its latest census held on 25^th August 1996. The emphasis of the profile is on identifying key implications of the observed demographic levels and trends, for planners and policy makers.’ (p.xii)

Provided here is the Introduction and excerpts from chapters on the Implications for Planning. These are listed under the relevant headings.

‘Recognising the longer term realities and implications of current actions, the development challenge is to meet the needs of present generations and improve their quality of life without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. (United Nations, 1994).

Population changes affect everyone in one way or another. Population change affects every facet of life whether we are talking about the number of people living in a village or the price of food. The prevalence of poverty as well as social and gender inequities have influences on, and are in turn influenced by population growth, structure and distribution. Unsustainable consumption and production patterns contribute to the unsustainable use of natural resources and environmental degradation as well as reinforcing social inequities and poverty.

Different people have different needs and these are closely related to population change, the state of the environment and the pace and quality of economic and social development. For governments to effectively provide for the specific needs of their population, and different sub-groups, it is important that planners and policy-makers have a clear picture of the demographic composition of the population.

Effective development planning depends upon reliable knowledge of the composition, growth and movement of population. In other words: planners need reliable information on their country’s population structure and population processes.

Population structure refers to population size, geographic distribution, age-sex structure and socio-economic characteristics (economic activity and educational and other social attributes of the population).

Population processes refer to population growth, fertility, mortality and migration (including urbanisation).

Apart from playing an important role in shaping a country’s economic and social development, population structures and processes can also be the direct result of development. This is quite evident in situations where policies are incorporated into development plans with the aim of altering specific population variables:

• greater budget allocation to a country’s ministry of department of health to expand its maternal and child health and family planning services can lead to fewer deaths of infants, children and women;
• promotion, provision and easy access to family planning services may lead, through a reduced fertility rate, to a lowering of the population’s growth rate;
• the establishment of rural industries to create rural employment may slow down rural-urban drift.

As population factors are important components of development, and as development is ultimately about people (specifically, about improving people’s lives), it will be clear to everyone involved in planning and policy-making that incorporating population considerations into the planning process is at the very heart of planning and development.

The aim of this profile is twofold:

1. to familiarise planners and policy-makers with some of the key features of the demography of Fiji; and

2. to discuss some of the key implications for development planning and policy.

More detailed analyses can be undertaken on any other specific sectoral issue or subject, subject to the availability of data.

This analysis mainly draws on the following source materials:

• 1996 Fiji Census of Population and Housing: General Tables, 1998
• 1996 Fiji Census of Population and Housing: Analytical Report, 1999 (forthcoming) and
• other unpublished information derived from the census.

2.1 1996 Population Census of Fiji Islands

• The geographical distribution of the population and its pattern of settlement have a direct bearing on delivery of services
  
  

• A high concentration of people usually means much better services, as population numbers justify the placement of medical, educational and financial institutions, communication and entertainment facilities. The concentration of people in the urban areas of the Central, Western and Northern Divisions demands and attracts the attention of planners and decision-makers. The provision of better services and facilities of various kinds in the urban centres is seen by many people as a major advantage of living there, and by the same token, lack of these facilities is a disadvantage in rural areas and outer islands and may be the main reason for relocation to the population centres.
  
  

• The lower concentration of people in the Eastern Division is of concern as it makes the establishment of services of any kind expensive and cost-ineffective. Only basic health services are delivered, which are not the same quality as those in the main urban centres. Provisions need to be in place to allow transport to the main hospitals for all emergencies.
  
  

• High concentrations of people may also mean more stress on the environment, and consequently there is a need to prioritise environmental health services such as water connection, sewage systems and garbage disposal.
  
  

• Food security becomes an important issue in view of the variation in population density across the country. The agricultural sector should take into account the varying number of consumers by division, both current and future, so that enough food can be produced to feed the projected numbers of consumers.
  
  

• Non-availability of land can be one of the main causes of people migrating to other areas in the country or to overseas destinations in search of better opportunities. (p.8)

2.3 Age and sex structure

• A country’s age structure has important implications for all its development policies and programs, as people make different demands on different services throughout their lives. For example:

• The number of young children and infants affects the need for immunisation and child health programs;
• The size of the primary school-age population (usually 6 to 12 year olds) determines the demand for primary education (schools, classrooms, teachers, materials, etc.);
• Manpower planning depends on the size of the working-age population;
• Budgeting pension entitlements depend on the number of eligible elderly people

• Fiji’s young age structure, especially among the Fijian component, means that a large proportion of its resources need to be invested in children, for example, their education and training, and health services. These investments obviously also need to be accompanied by economic development activities, preferably of they type not merely geared towards economic growth per se, but primarily towards employment creation.
  
  

• Population projections (Appendix Table 33) show that the elderly will increase both in number and as a percentage of the total population in the future. Women make up a higher percentage of the elderly. All medium and long-term socio-economic planning should take this into account. Social security systems that ensure greater inter-generational and intra-generational equity and solidarity should be developed. These systems should encourage families to take care of their elderly in their homes. (p.13)

3. SOCIAL PROFILE OF THE POPULATION

3.1 Ethnicity

3.2 Religion

• The preponderance of many religious group points to the need to protect and promote awareness of human rights so that people can live together peacefully.
  
  
• The Government should respect the autonomy of religious groups and should integrate them in their decision-making and facilitate the contribution that non-governmental organisations such as church organisations can make at all levels to finding solutions to population and development concerns. (p.16)

• The high rate of widowhood among women calls for special attention to their needs - economic, social, health and other needs.
  
• Early marriages, especially among girls, points to a need for government to ensure those girls complete at least high school education. (p.18)

3.4 Educational characteristics

• Changes in a country’s population structure affect educational needs. The higher a country’s level of fertility, at given levels of mortality, the larger is its school-age population relative to the rest of the population.
  
  
• In view of Fiji’s stagnating birth rates, the school-age population will inevitably increase in the future and, unless birth rates decline, this trend will be maintained or even increase in the long term. This means more public funding will be required for educational purposes, both recurrent and capital expenditures, to meet increased demand in the future. Depending on future of fertility and migration, there will be between 11,168 and 35,053 more pupils on 2011 than in 1996 (Appendix Table 33).
  
  
• School leavers are more qualified than their predecessors, hence the implications for Fiji’s economy are:

• The profile of the labour force will change in favour of more qualified applicants who will be chasing fewer employment opportunities. A more educated workforce increases a country’s comparative advantages, and greatly facilitates direct foreign investments
• In anticipation of the growing numbers of unemployed youths, vocational training could be stepped up to teach school leavers skills that they could use at home to generate income (carpentry, tailoring, animal husbandry, etc.), if they cannot find jobs in the formal sector.

• The education and training of young people should go hand-in-hand with economic and social development policies. This should take care of discrepancies between the educational system and the production system which can lead to unemployment and underemployment, a devaluing of qualifications and, in some cases, the exodus of qualified people from rural to urban areas and to ‘brain drain’.
  
  
• Gender balance in educational attainment at all levels should be promoted. The gender discrepancy is widest at post-secondary level, in favour of males. Training teachers to be more gender-sensitive, providing scholarships and other appropriate incentives, and sensitising parents to the value of educating girls would help to keep girls and adolescents in school. Pregnant adolescents should be permitted and helped to continue their education.
  
  
• Post-secondary education among Fijians is lagging behind other ethnic groups. To promote equity among all groups, Government should promote higher education among Fijians in order to bring them to the level of those groups.
  
  
• In view of the lower enrolment rates at secondary levels among the rural population, Government needs to strengthen efforts to improve the education levels in rural areas. (p.20)

• Given the importance of family units, the Government should formulate family-sensitive policies in the fields of housing, work, health, social security and education in order to create an environment supportive of the family, taking into account its various forms and functions.

• Planners should be aware of changes in household size and composition, and their impact on different demands for housing and dwellings in order to be able to supply the appropriate quality and quantity of housing units.
  

• Different demands for housing are closely linked to demands for:

   - land allocation;

   - energy and water consumption;

   - waste disposal and sewage connections, and

   - general infrastructure

• Increases in one-person and nuclear family type households point to the need to strengthen traditional family networks with a view to providing social security services for the elderly.
  
  

• Increasing female-headed households creates a demand for low-cost housing as women are usually in the lower income brackets.
  
  

• Provision of a safe and reliable water supply for all people in Fiji should be a priority for the Government in view of the large proportion of households that still rely on communal standpipes, well, river or creek for their main sources of water. This will have positive implications for social and economic development. For example, health problems caused by unsafe drinking water and inadequate sanitation will be minimised.
  
  

• In view of the importance of wood-fuel in Fiji households, the Government should promote environmentally friendly and sustainable wood-fuel sources. (p.26)

• Investment in human resource development should be given priority in budgets at all levels. In view of the low levels of Fijian paid employment, special human resource development programs should be developed to cater for their needs. Programs should be specifically directed at increasing access to information, education, skill development, and employment opportunities, both formal and informal.
  
  

• Regional growth centres should be developed in order to share out the benefits of development to people in other areas of Fiji, especially in the Northern and Eastern Divisions and in the rural areas of the Central and Western Divisions. Consequently, there would be less reliance on subsistence activities in these areas and their standard of living would improve.
  
  

• Existing inequities and barriers to women in the workforce should be eliminated. Women should be encouraged to participate in all policy-making and implementation by appointing them to legislative and managerial positions. Their access to productive resources, ownership of land, and their right to inherit property should be promoted and strengthened.
  
  

• Training of women in hard core science and other disciplines where they still lag behind males should be encouraged at all levels of education.
  
  

• Job creation in the industrial and service sectors, and especially the agricultural sector should be facilitated by Government and the private sector through the establishment of more favourable climates for expanded trade and investment. Care needs to be taken that this is carried out on an environmentally sound basis, with greater investment in human resource development and the development of democratic institutions and good governance. (p.32)

• The low population growth rate of 0.8% per annum was brought about by a high net migration rate of -1.1% which countered the relatively high natural increase of 1.9%. However, the high rate of natural increase could lead to high population growth should net migration reverse its current trend. Efforts should therefore continue to be directed at reducing the fertility level, especially of the Fijians.
  
  

• In order to cater for the large number of young people, especially young Fijians, mechanisms should be in place to meet their health, education, employment and housing and related needs, to ensure that they enjoy a good quality of life, and to increase their contribution to sustainable development. (p.34)

• Declining fertility or a reduction in the average number of children per woman, as is assumed in the population projections for Fiji (Section 7.2) would have the following impact on the population:

• A slowing of Fiji’s growth rate;
• Fiji’s population becoming older, as the proportion of children reduces;
• Fewer school children;

• The higher fertility among Fijian women, especially rural women, shows the need for more efforts to reduce their fertility. Such efforts could include:

• preventing unwanted pregnancies and reducing the incidence of high-risk pregnancies;

• improving the quality of family planning advice, information, education, communication, counselling and services;

• making quality family planning services affordable, acceptable and accessible to all who need and want them, while maintaining confidentiality;

• increasing the participation and sharing of responsibility of men in the actual practice of family planning. (p.37)

• With mortality levels stagnating during the last 10 years or so, there is a need to prolong the healthy life span and improve the quality of life of all people. Actions should include:

• making access to basic health care and health promotion the central strategies for reducing mortality and morbidity. Sufficient resources should be assigned so that primary health services attain full coverage of the population. Government should strengthen health and nutrition information, education and communication activities so as to enable people to increase their control over and improve their health;

• the role of women as primary custodians of family health should be recognised and supported and at the same time, men should be encouraged to share this responsibility;

• Government should ensure community participation in health policy planning, especially with respect to the long-term care of the elderly and those infected with HIV/AIDS and other endemic diseases;

• Government should re-examine training curricula and the delegation of responsibilities within the health-care delivery system in order to reduce the frequent, unnecessary and costly reliance on physicians and on secondary- and tertiary-care facilities, while maintaining effective referral services;

• through technology transfer, Government can seek assistance in building its capacity to produce generic drugs for the domestic market and to ensure the wide availability and accessiblity of such drugs;

• priority should be given to measures that improve the quality of life and health by ensuring a safe and sanitary living environment for all population groups through measures aimed at avoiding crowded housing conditions, reducing air pollution, ensuring access to clean water and sanitation, improving waste management, and increasing the safety of the workplace;

• reform of the health sector and health policy, including the rational allocation of resources, should be promoted in order to achieve the stated objectives;

• there is a need for inter-sectoral coordination because health is a crosscutting issue and not merely the concern of the health sector. (p.40)

• When formulating population distribution policies, Government should ensure that the objectives and goals of those policies are consistent with other development goals, policies and basic human rights. With the assistance of interested local, divisional and intergovernmental agencies, Government should assess on a regular basis how the consequences of their economic and environmental policies, sectoral priorities, infrastructural investment and balance of resources among divisional, central, provincial and local authorities influence population distribution and internal migration. This applies to both permanent and temporary migration.
  
  

• In order to achieve a balanced spatial distribution of production employment and population, Government should adopt sustainable regional development strategies and strategies for the encouragement of urban consolidation, the growth of small or medium sized urban centres and the sustainable development of rural areas. This includes the adoption of labour-intensive projects, training for non-farming jobs for youth and effective transport and communication systems.
  
  

• To reduce urban bias and isolated rural development, Government should examine the feasibility of providing incentives to encourage the redistribution and relocation of industries and businesses from urban to rural areas. Government should also encourage the establishment of new businesses, industrial units and income-generating projects in rural areas.
  
  

• In order to create alternatives to out-migration from rural areas, Government should establish the preconditions for development in rural areas. These include actively supporting access to ownership or use of land and access to water resources, making and encouraging investments to enhance rural productivity, improving rural infrastructure and social services and facilitating the establishment of credit, production and marketing of cooperatives and other grassroots organisations that give people greater control over resources and improve their livelihoods.
  
  

• Government should pursue development strategies offering tangible benefits to investors in rural areas and to rural producers. Government should also seek to reduce restrictions on international trade in agricultural products.
  
  

• Government should strengthen its capacity to respond to pressures caused by mass movement of people to Greater Suva and the main urban centres in the Western Division, by revising and reorienting the agencies and mechanisms for urban management as necessary and ensuring the wide participation of all population groups in planning and decision-making relating to local development. (p.44)

• Population growth during the period 1986-96 was reduced by the high migration rate. However, if migration trends were to reverse, this would result in a high growth rate because of the high rate of natural increase. To illustrate the point:

• A population growth of 0.8% means that Fiji’s population would double in 87 years’ time;

• A rate of natural increase of 1.9% means that Fiji’s population would double in only 36 years’ time.

• Government should develop policies aimed at filling the gaps created by the ‘brain drain’ now, and that anticipated in the future. Examples are:

• more opportunities for training in professional, technical and managerial positions, keeping in mind past trends when awarding scholarships;

• expanded training programs in both public and private sectors in the professional and technical areas, and management at all levels to meet current and anticipated demands in the future;

• More opportunities to be given to women to be appointed to managerial positions at all levels, in view of the high rate of emigration of male managers.

• Government should strengthen efforts to achieve sustainable economic and social development to reduce economic disparities between destination countries and Fiji. (P.47)