The Economist - 04.12.2021

The Economist December 4th 2021 55

Asia

India’spopulation

The patter of fewer tiny feet

W

hen something happens  earlier
than  expected,  Indians  say  it  has
been  “preponed”.  On  November  24th  In­
dia’s  health  ministry  revealed  that  a  reso­
lution to one of its oldest and greatest pre­
occupations  will  indeed  be  preponed.
Some  years  ahead  of  unpredictions,  and
its  own  government  targets,  India’s  total
fertility  rate—the  average  number  of  chil­
dren  that  an  Indian  woman  can  expect  to
bear  in  her  lifetime—has  fallen  below  2.1,
which  is  to  say  below  the  “replacement”
level at which births balance deaths. In fact
it dropped to just 2.0 overall, and to 1.6 in
India’s  cities,  says  the National  Family
Health  Survey  (nfhs­5),  a  country­wide
health  check.  That  is  a  10%  drop  from  the
previous survey, just five years ago.
This  is  big  news  not  just  for  India  but,
seeing  that  its  1.4bn  people  are  nearly  a
fifth of humanity, for the planet. The num­
ber of Indians will still grow, because many
young women have yet to reach child­bear­
ing age. But lower fertility means the popu­
lation will peak sooner and at a lower fig­
ure: not in 40 years at more than 1.7bn, as

was  widely  predicted,  but  probably  a  de­

cade earlier, at perhaps 1.6bn. 

India’s government has sought a lower

fertility rate for decades. At independence

in 1947 it was close to 6. The new republic

had  also  just  suffered  a  terrible  wartime

famine in Bengal, which left 2m­3m dead.

The  excessively  gloomy  ideas  of  Thomas

Malthus, a 19th­century English economist

who warned that population growth would

inevitably outstrip food production, cast a

long  shadow  over  policymakers.  The  con­

sequent fear of a “population bomb” drove

the  creation  of  the  world’s  first  national

family­planning programme in 1952. 

It  took  25  years  for  the  fertility  rate  to

fall to 5. Impatient at this progress, Indira

Gandhi, who was then the prime minister,

took drastic action. During the Emergency

of  1975­77,  when  she  ruled  by  decree,  her

son  Sanjay  led  a  notorious  campaign  of

forced  sterilisation.  This  set  back  many

reasonable policies, such as promoting the

voluntary  use  of  contraceptives,  though

they later returned. 

The  southern  state  of  Kerala  was  the

first to see fertility fall below replacement

level, in the 1990s. One by one, other states

have followed. Out of India’s 36 states and

“union territories”, 29 now have rates of 1.9

or less. In poor and largely rural Uttar Pra­

desh and Bihar, the rate stands at 2.4 and 3

respectively. But it is falling faster in those

places than in the country as a whole.

The  share  of  parents  using  contracep­

tion  continues  to  grow.  More  than  two­

thirds  of  couples  now  do,  compared  with

54%  five  years  ago.  Another  striking

change is a steadily rising age of marriage.

In  the  2005­06  survey,  the  proportion  of

women  aged  20­24  who  had  already  been

married  at  18  stood  at  47%.  This  has

dropped by half in 15 years, to 23%, mean­

ing that women are spending fewer child­

bearing  years  with  a  partner.  Improving

education  has  also  had  an  impact.  India’s

data  show  a  perfect  correlation  between

years of schooling and numbers of births.

Slowing  growth  will  reduce  long­term

pressure  on  some  resources  that  are  rela­

tively scarce in India, such as land and wa­

ter. The news may have other benefits, too.

Politicians have often used fear of popula­

D ELHI
For the first time, India’s fertility rate has fallen below replacement level

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