Demographic, population, and social change in Uganda 1990–2019

Abstract

Uganda recorded an increase in population from 9.5 million in 1969 to 34.6 million in 2014, representing an increase of 264.21%. The fertility rate in Uganda declined from 6.9 to 5.4 children per woman between 1995 and 2016, respectively. In addition, age dependency in Uganda has recorded a significant increase from 97% to 101% from 1996 to 2014. This chapter is based on a study which examined the effect of demographics and population growth on social change in Uganda and specifically determined the effect of age dependency on school enrollment, established the effect of the total fertility rate on the labor force, and examined the effect of population growth on the proportion of seats held in parliament with bias on women. The study was guided by an exploratory research design under the confinement of quantitative approaches and used secondary data. The results indicated that the age dependency ratio has a significant positive effect on female enrollment in tertiary institutions (P-value < 0.05), age dependency ratio has a significant and positive effect on male enrollment in tertiary institutions at a 5% level of significance, the total fertility rate has a significant negative effect on female labor force (B = -1.618, P-value < 0.05), the total fertility rate has a significant positive effect on male labor force (B=1.410, P-value < 0.05), and there is a positive and significant effect of population growth on the proportion of seats held by women in national parliament (B = 0.825, P-value < 0.05). The study concluded that there is a need for more effort to fight dependency among the Ugandan population in order to enhance both male and female enrollment in tertiary institutions; government and development partners should design programs and interventions to fight the rising total fertility rate because it affects active female involvement in the labor force; and there is need to implement more programs that foster women participation in parliamentary elections. The government should set up more programs and interventions that support people in unproductive age, especially those above 64 years; the Ministry of Education should address barriers that limit female enrollment in tertiary institutions and should effectively implement its policies, i.e., gender in education policy which promotes gender equality and girl child education.