India’s Population Data and A Tale of Two Projections

Context: The country’s demographic future will see peaking and then declining numbers driven by a sharp fertility reduction.

Demographic future of India: According to Institute of Health Metric and Evaluation - 

• Population projection: India population will peak by mid-century. As the 21st century closes, its population will be about 1.09 billion.
• Sharp population decline: India’s demographic future contains a peaking and subsequently declining population driven by a sharp reduction in fertility. 

• By the year 2100, on average Indian women will have 1.29 children. 

Factors affecting the credibility of the Study

• Unconvincing Fertility Rate Predictions: With the fertility rate of 1.29 for India with the projected cohort fertility of 1.53 for the United States and 1.78 for France in the same model, seems unconvincing.
• Excessive reliance on contraceptive use data: utilized by the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and potential for increasing its use.

Analysing the reasons for Fertility Decline in India:

• False Assumptions: 

• Decline in Fertility rate not majorly linked to National Family Planning:

• Forced sterilisation during the Emergency barely led to a 17% decline in Total Fertility Rate (TFR) from 5.9 in 1960 to 4.9 in 1980.

• Family Planning lost its primacy in policy discourse: Following the Cairo conference on Population and Development in 1994, the targets were abandoned.

• Attributing decline of fertility to retreat of family:

•  On the contrary, Indian parents seem to demonstrate increased commitment to family by reducing the number of children and investing more in each child.

• True Reasoning: 

• Socioeconomic transformation of India since the 1990s has played an important role:

• Agriculture became a smaller part of the Indian economy, school and college enrolment grew sharply and individuals found jobs in multinationals.
• TFR between 1992 and 2015 had fallen by 35% from 3.4 to 2.2.

• Aspirations for the children and not for self is driving the fertility decline: Punitive policies not able to address the family planning issues.

• On a same income level, the small and large families do not differ in their leisure activities, but smaller families do invest more money in their children education.

Way Forward: Demographic data suggest that the aspirational revolution is already under way.

• The public discourse needs to focus on ignorant or uncaring parents to have fewer children.
• Prepare Health and family welfare system up for the challenge to provide contraception and sexual and reproductive health services.