On a humid morning in the outskirts of Dhaka, 28-year-old Monira Begum waits in line at a local government office. She has come to apply for a formal job that promises steady wages and maternity benefits, something she has never had before. But the process stops before it begins. She does not have a birth certificate.
“I was born at home,” she says quietly. “My parents never registered my birth. Back then, we only worried about the next meal, not recording the day I was born. Now they say my information doesn’t exist in the system.”
Monira works, pays rent, raises a child, and contributes to Bangladesh’s economy every day. Yet officially, she is invisible: one of millions of Bangladeshis whose lives never fully enter the country’s records.
Her story is not an isolated case. In fact, it explains a larger structural reality. Economists warn that gaps in birth registration are quietly reshaping Bangladesh’s labor market and, ultimately, the country’s economic future.
Bangladesh’s Labor Force Survey 2023 estimates that around 84 percent of employment remains informal. Around 38 percent of informal workers belong to the younger age group of 15-29 years, of which females share the greatest portion. Researchers express concern that Bangladesh will not be to capitalize its youth bulge if weak birth registration quietly feeds this informality which prevents millions from entering formal economic systems.
“Documentation is the gateway to formality,” explained a labor economics expert. “Without it, workers remain trapped outside labor protections, minimum wage enforcement, and skills development opportunities.”
The result is not only social vulnerability but economic loss. Informal workers tend to have lower productivity and limited upward mobility, hindering national growth potential. In other words, unregistered citizens are missing not just from records, but from economic opportunity itself.
Incomplete numbers and economic planning
Population data sits at the foundation of economic planning. Governments rely on it to estimate labor force growth, design pension systems, build schools and hospitals, and allocate billions of takas in public investment. Yet Bangladesh’s civil registration system captures only part of reality. Available estimates reveal that while global birth and death registration rates stand at 77 and 74 percent respectively, only about half of births are registered in Bangladesh and less than half of deaths enter official records. In effect, one in every two citizens never formally enters or exits the state’s statistical system.
“We rely on projections that assume complete data,” said a senior economist working at a reputed organization. “But when registration is incomplete, those projections are built on missing foundations.”
The consequences ripple through nearly every sector. Labor force forecasts become unreliable. Infrastructure investments risk overshooting or underserving communities. Pension liabilities cannot be accurately calculated. Health systems operate without a clear picture of mortality trends.
The law that left registration to families
At the center of the issue lies Bangladesh’s “Birth and Death Registration Act of 2004”, which assigns primary responsibility for registration to families rather than institutions. Two decades later, experts argue that this design no longer reflects reality. Today, nearly two-thirds of births occur in health facilities. Yet hospitals are not legally required to register births or deaths directly.
In contrast, countries across the Asia-Pacific region, including Sri Lanka and the Maldives, achieved near-universal registration by introducing hospital-based systems where births and deaths are recorded automatically. Bangladesh has yet to make that transition.
A narrow window for reform
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific has set a target of universal registration by 2030, a goal Bangladesh has formally endorsed. Policy analysts argue that achieving it will require structural reform.
A former government official and civil registration expert noted, “The most important proposed measures include making hospitals and healthcare facilities legally responsible for registering births and deaths, increasing public awareness about the importance of registration, strengthening coordination between health, local government, and statistics agencies and producing regular vital statistics for policy planning.”
He also warned that delays could carry growing economic costs.
Building the future
Back in the government office, Monira leaves without submitting her job application. Officials advise her to first obtain documentation proving her birth, a process that could take months. Her experience illustrates a national paradox: a country striving toward enhanced economic growth while millions remain undocumented at the grassroot level.
Bangladesh’s development story has often been defined by resilience and rapid progress. But sustainable development may depend on something far simpler and more fundamental, that is, the country must count its people first.
