Page 34 - Health, Population and Environment Education 9

labourers to work in the field. They cannot get any other labourers as honest as their
children and in free. Hence, they bear more children. But, people involved in other
occupation like services, business, teaching, etc. remain busy and have less time to bring
up their children. Therefore, they want to bear less children.

iv. Insurance for future
People want to bear many children for their security and good life during the old age.
People cannot work during old age. They need someone to take care of them. They have
to depend on their children. People think that when they bear more children, even if
many children do not take care of them, at least one or two will take care of them in the
old age. Due to this type of thinking, people want to bear more children. Ultimately, there
is increase of population growth.

c. Environmental factors
Those factors which are related with environment and environment matters, they are
called environment factors. Climate is one of the environmental factors. The climatic
condition of a place affects the birth of children. Generally, females in hot places become
mature faster and have early starting of menstruation than the females in cold places. As
a result, there is extension of fertility period in females in hot places. Hence, females in
hot places give birth to more children than the females in cold places. In our context, terai
region has hot climate and mountain region has cold climate. The females in terai region
become mature faster, have early development of reproductive organs and early starting
of menstruation cycle than the females in mountain region. Hence, it is seen that females
in terai region give birth to more children than the females in mountain region.
Factors affecting death
Death is the natural factor of population change. Death in inevitable part of our life. It
decreases the population in a place. According to WHO, death can be defined as, “The
permanent disappearance of all the evidences of life.” People in Nepal are surviving
more. Their life expectancy has been extended a lot in comparison to last (20 – 30) years. It
is actually due to availability of health services, health manpower, improvement in health
sector, invention of medicines, control of diseases, awareness on health education, etc.
There are various factors affecting death. They are described below:

a. Social factors

i. Illiteracy
More and more people are illiterate in our context.
The illiterate people are ignorant about importance of
health education, practice of health rules, maintenance
of personal hygiene, sanitation, cleanliness, importance
of balanced diet, etc. Moreover, they are superstitious
and believe on various unscientific and traditional
matters. Whenever they suffer from any disease or
have health problems, they think that is caused due to
Fig: 13
34 GREEN Environment Population and Health Education Book-9