7th Annual Research Symposium – 2020 : 24th Nov.
The First International Research conference of the Department of Demography, University of Colombo took place virtually on 24th of November 2020 via Zoom. This was also the inaugural international edition of the 7th Annual Research Symposium of the Department of Demography under the theme of “Population and Sustainable Development“ with a number of national as well as international participants. Dr. Manori K. Weerathunga, Head of the Department of Demography, and the Conference Chair welcomed the gathering whilst introducing the theme for the day and its importance. She introduced the audience to the main objective of this conference; to create an international platform to open a unique opportunity for local as well as international colleagues for a high-quality scholarly discussion on a variety of topics which are related to population and sustainable development. The inaugural session was followed by the scientific sessions. There were about 45 presentations from national international colleagues.
Senior Prof. Premakumara De Silva – Dean, Faculty of Arts said that this event is a good opportunity for the researchers as it facilitates the exchange of ideas, establishment of inter-disciplinary links, build dialogues both nationally and internationally and explore new possibilities for future researches. During the address by Senior Prof. Chandrika N Wijeyratne, Vice Chancellor, University of Colombo, she mentioned that the whole university aims at addressing the sustainable development goals and the Department of Demography is the focal point and a huge resource which everyone else look upon for value addition.
The guest of honour of the event was Ms Ritsu Naken, Country Representative of UNFPA. She addressed the gathering by giving a brief introduction to the UNFPA. She addressed the major shifts in population dynamics that Sri Lanka is currently experiencing. Ms Naken expressed that the pace in which Sri Lanka’s age structure transforms is quite rapid when compared to other exemplar countries and that the country should be cautious about getting old before becoming rich.
The Keynote Speaker for the inauguration ceremony was Emeritus Professor Peter Macdonald – School of Demography, Australian National University and an Honorary Professor of the University of Melbourne. Professor Macdonald’s paper which he presented at the conference was based on the research question “Should governments and countries where the total fertility rate is approaching 2.0 birth per woman take the immediate benefits of a larger demographic dividend due to very low fertility or should they be concerned more about the future prospect of population ageing.” In his presentation he made comparisons between the Asian Tiger countries (South Korea, Japan etc.) and other developing countries. He brought out the fact that when South Korea had its fertility rate at 2.21 their GDP per capita was 0.14 but when Sri Lanka had the same fertility rate its GDP per capita was 0.07. From these data he drew out the conclusion that there is a huge gap between Asian tiger countries and developing countries when they were both trying to take advantage of the demographic dividend in terms of GDP per capita. He stated that one reason for this drastic gap was the low rates of labour force participation from women by analysing data of Thailand, Indonesia and Bangladesh. The presentation then extended to education where he highlighted that the Asian tiger countries concentrate a lot on female education and it is very clear because South Korea is number one in the global ranking of female education which was evaluated out of 134 countries with populations of one million or more.
