India’s birth crisis

What’s in the news?

A Lancet study has highlighted that by 2050, one in five Indians will be a senior citizen while there will be fewer younger people to take care of them.
The study noted that India’s total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born per woman — is dipping irreversibly to 1.29, far lower than the replacement rate of 2.1. This means a rapidly depleting working age population.

Why fertility went down in India?

Post-independence, there was a need to restrict the population. So the Family Welfare Programme, including maternal and child health-related cash transfer inducements, were intended to convince people to have no more than two children.
During that time, the system required a lot of effort to change the mindset of the Indian population. Slowly that behaviour change started showing up.
Infant mortality declined substantially (because of various maternal and child health-related programmes and successful immunisation) meaning child survival was guaranteed. Small families became the norm.
There is an economic dimension too. With development, the inter-generational flow of wealth has reversed. This means parents now do not receive much benefit from their children the way they used to.
This has influenced their decision to have an additional child that would involve a substantial cost of bringing them up. So this fertility decline was inevitable and we were envisaging it for quite some time.
The other significant factor has clearly been the rise of female literacy and women’s participation in the workforce.
Career consciousness, financial returns and economic independence have meant that women are reconsidering their options of having a second child.
In the urban space, many women do not consider child-rearing as a must-do task, are instead choosing not to have babies at all and even considering options like adoption. This pattern is percolating to rural India too.

What are long-term consequences?

The consequences of fertility decline will be that the share of the elderly in the population will increase sharply. By 2050 the share of senior citizens in India will be more than 20 per cent, that is one five people.
There are challenges like labour force shortages and potential social imbalances due to gender preferences.
While these challenges are still a few decades away for India, we need to start acting now with a comprehensive approach for the future.
- We need to learn from Scandinavian countries like Sweden and Denmark, which are dealing with these challenges by supporting new families.
- They are providing affordable childcare, investing in healthcare and taking on large-scale male-engagement initiatives to build gender equity.

For women to be able to manage careers with motherhood, it would be crucial for men to take greater responsibility for household and care work.
Economic policies that stimulate growth and job creation, alongside social security and pension reforms, will also be essential in adapting to and mitigating the impacts of declining fertility rates.

Declining trend worldwide

Researchers estimate that by 2050, 155 of 204 countries (76 per cent of the world) will be below the replacement level of fertility. The number of countries and territories below replacement level is predicted to further increase to 198 (97 per cent) by 2100.
This means that in these locations, populations will shrink unless low fertility can be offset by ethical and effective immigration.

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