It is now widely recognised that there is a need to take the scope of the population policy in Bangladesh beyond the confines of achieving population stabilisation through reduction of fertility. Although in recent years the approach to reduce of fertility has changed from narrow family planning to a broad based reproductive health approach, it is being increasingly felt that Bangladesh’s population policy should encompass other equally important issues which have wide implications for the development process and the quality of life of people of Bangladesh. In this paper, some important issues and priorities have been discussed to incorporate in population policy especially highlighting the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) recommendation.

Given current growth rate in different parts of the world, significantly higher in the LDCs, the regional distribution of the world’s population will inevitably change by 2050. Increased dependency ratios, massive income inequality, and natural resource limitations are likely to negatively affect the economic growth in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Although population growth has a whole negative impact on economy, the growth of working age people has a strong positive impact. Demographic variables played a large role in East Asia’s economic success. Increases in life expectancy have a large effect on incomes in East Asia. A rapid decline in fertility led to a substantial reduction in youth dependency ratio, thereby helping to boost growth rates of income per capita. Asia’s experience suggest that population change and productive growth are not independent. Policy-induced changes in demographic and economic variables can promote a virtuous cycle of cumulative causation in which economics and demographics interact in a mutually reinforcing way. Population’s positive impact is most likely to occur where natural resources are abundant, where the possibilities for scale economics are substantial, and where the markets and other conditions (especially government) allocate resources in a reasonably efficient way over time and space. Substantially, demographic change combined with sound and efficient economic policies facilities the way toward development.

This study has attempted to identify some socio-economic, demographic and cultural variables by which age at marriage in Bangladesh is determined. Data have been collected from both rural and urban women to get a comparative picture of age at marriage using the face-to-face interview technique. From the findings of the regression analysis of this study, it was found that all the independent variables in combination explain 37.4 percent variance of the dependent variable in rural area. The explanatory power of the regression analysis model for urban area was more powerful in comparison to rural area. It was found that all the independent variables in combination, explained 48.8 percent variance of the dependent variable.

Reports suggest that almost two third of the rural population in South Asia is still primarily engaged in agriculture. There has been a trend in all these countries for people to move from rural to urban areas in search of livelihood opportunities and, within rural areas, to move out of agriculturally-based occupations, due to various reasons like growing pressure on natural resources, declining terms of agricultural trade and other broad ranging trends in society. In this context, population movement or mobility has long been represented in academic and policy discourse as the consequence of failure, of environmental disaster, economic exploitation, or political or civil tensions and violence. It has often been perceived to be a cause of problems, like environmental degradation, health problems, political or social instability, and unravelling social fabric and support systems. However, there are arguments that population mobility is an increasingly important livelihood option for rural population. Despite this significance, population mobility has been one of the least researched subjects in South Asia. There has been no systematic study addressing the questions related to population mobility and its relationship to people's livelihoods. Furthermore, a review of literature in wider social science debate shows that the relationship between poverty and migration has been an unsettled issue with divergent and often contrasting perspectives which calls for a growing need to look at interrelationship between these two. There is a clear indication in the literature· that poverty is not necessarily the main cause of migration, and the relationship between poverty and migration is complex and context-driven. At the broader level, this study is important and necessary to contribute to long standing debate on migration, poverty and its relationship to people's livelihoods.

The paper is an attempt to focus some issues and problems related to environment and sustainable development of Bangladesh. This article concentrates primarily on the state of the environment to examine the sustainability of its development. Different socio-economic, cultural and political factors which are closely related with environment are also being explored. Some major environmental concerns like deforestation, land degradation, wetlands and coastal environment, shrinking of bio-diversity, uncontrolled environmental pollution and threats of natural disasters have been discussed here. Moreover, the paper also considers the issues related to environment and sustainable development such as urbanization, industrialization, energy, and water management.

This study evaluates the existing breastfeeding practices among rural and urban populations in Bangladesh. It also examines the role of breastfeeding in birth spacing. For the purpose, mothers, having at least two children, were interviewed. To delineate birth spacing, age differences between the last and second last children's birth have been accounted. The difference of differential determinants is analyzed through multivariate regression analysis in the study to grasp the effect of particular determinants of breastfeeding in birth spacing.