Get married in your 20s: PM

A barely two percent population growth in the country and a huge outmigration of the country’s youth has sections of the Nepali society deeply worried.

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli shared this worry at the concluding session of the Nepal Youth Summit 2024 while acknowledging, at least partially, that a not-so-conducive environment for jobs was also to blame for the exodus.

Nepal’s population growth rate is quite low, he said, offering the youth an idea for a ‘beautiful future’: Get married in your 20s and procreate without delay. Otherwise, Nepal may become a country of senior citizens with the youths leaving the country in large numbers citing a lack of job opportunities.

If one were to read Nepal’s Marriage Registration Act, the minimum legal age for marriage in Nepal is 20 years for girls and boys. However, they can marry at 18 years with parental consent.

The onus is on our young people to think about this alarming scenario (a low population growth and a high rate of youth out migration), he said, striking a chord with sections of the Nepali society that often express concerns about the youth exodus and a low population growth rate in a country with a population of around 29m.

The country has problems, but it is not the sole reason behind this exodus, he said in reference to a grim reality in which senior citizens, women and children have been left to fend for themselves.

“There is also a wave and a youthful desire to go abroad,” he said. 

A large number of youths have gone abroad and there’s a need to stop this outflow, PM Oli said at a time when successive governments have drawn flak for their failure to create a conducive environment for employment and retain the youths within the country, and reap the demographic dividend amid talk of Nepal’s graduation to a developing country status from the club of least developed countries. 

The government is making plans to promote entrepreneurship, PM Oli sought to assure, adding that his administration was thinking of bringing about a wave of development by introducing micro-entrepreneurship programs that provide jobs to a significant number of youths. 

Twenty percent of the national population lives below the poverty line, he said, stressing the need to reduce poverty by two percent each year for 10 consecutive years. 

Will these concerns be followed by some concrete action, making way for a great future every Nepali has been dreaming about, which goes well beyond marriage at a certain age? Who knows it better than the PM himself?