The country’s fertility rate has declined to 1.9, dipping below the replacement level of 2.1. This means Indian women are, on average, having fewer children than needed to maintain the current population size. Currently, Muslims constitute only 14 per cent of the population whereas Hindus account for 80%. Y. Quraishi, former Chief Election Commissioner of India, writes, “NFHS-5 data shows literacy and delivery of services, not religion, influences fertility”.
In Rajasthan, those having more than two children are not eligible for appointments in government jobs. The Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Act, 1994, also states that if a person has more than two children, he or she will be disqualified from contesting the election as a panch or a member. However, the two-child norm is relaxed in case a child is differently abled. The draft bill, for which suggestions have been invited from the public by July 19, also proposes to prohibit people who have more than two children from receiving any kind of subsidy, and suggests incentives such as tax rebates for those with two children or less. Some have questioned its timing, since the state goes to polls in eight months; others have supported the proposition by highlighting several other states that already have a two-child norm in place. The policy has also been criticised for being unnecessary, violating women’s rights and for allegedly discriminating against Muslims.
Business Times
What would lead these upper income households to limit fertility under conditions of economic growth? It is not our intention to enter into the debate as to whether family size causes greater investments in children or vice versa (Cassen 1994; Johnson and Lee 1986). We seek to compare the life-styles of small and large families in India to see if these comparisons yield any insights into possible motivations that may affect Indian parents’ family building strategies. In this context, the observation that the primary distinction between small and large families in India lies in investments in children’s education is highly significant, a theme to which we return below.
Increased Age For Girls Marriage
In contrast, current theories of the second demographic transition might apply much more powerfully to the situation of increasing and voluntary childlessness. In other words, intentionally giving up on childbearing altogether might reflect entry into the kind of post-modern world that Van da Kaa (1986) describes much more strongly than does choosing between stopping at one rather than two children. “There is a need to control the population for the development of the country, irrespective of whether it is the population of Hindus or Muslims or other religions,” said the Minister of State of Social Justice and Empowerment, whose Republican Party of India is part of the NDA government at the Centre. When Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath chose the occasion of World Population Day on July 11 to announce a new state population policy, there normally should have been no quarrel about it.
Arguments for Population Stabilisation and Control In India
But one empirical question is whether urban students are more likely to pursue STEM education than rural students. Many of our top institutions like the IITs, IIMs, and central universities have long had reservation and quota policies. These have helped attract significant talent from rural India and disadvantaged sections of society. Heads of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have publicly expressed concern over declining fertility. But history shows that no government has successfully reversed a falling fertility trend once it sets in.
- At the same time, it is true that we cannot assume that this will always be the case.
- In 1952, five years after Independence, India became one of the first countries to initiate a national family planning programme.
- This observation has important implications for fertility theories that have assumed a floor of two child families for the first demographic transition.
- The policy, according to experts, is proving counterproductive for women.
- Fertility rates lower than replacement level fertility rates (2.1 children per woman, on average) means that the current population cannot be replaced at the prevailing population growth rate.
Declining marriage and Rising Age at Childbearing
The other issue is that India spends only about 3.1 per cent of its GDP on education, while health gets about 1.5 per cent of its total spend. The US spends nearly 17 per cent of its GDP on public health and 6 per cent on education. “India remains deficient in allocations for health and education. When the population begins to age, health requirements will become more,” says D.K.
To achieve this, the Government pioneered the ‘cafeteria approach’ to contraception that attempted to offer the public an expanded choice of contraceptives. The policy, according to experts, is proving counterproductive for women. Muttreja said evidence from the ground shows gendered consequences including female foeticide, child abandonment and worsening sex ratios. To add to it, they are often blamed or punished for fertility decisions beyond their control. Coercive norms thus erode both gender equity and reproductive rights,” she said.
Women’s education, awareness about family planning and easy availability of contraceptives would be more effective than coercive measures, other experts from PFI said. One of the fallouts of this has been unsafe abortions–more than half of the abortions in India are unsafe–showing that though women want to control family sizes, they do not have access to safe methods. Laws which punish families for having a third child or force abortions of the third child «will increase female foeticide and unsafe abortions», said Anjani Kumar Singh, a programme manager with Vatsalya, a Lucknow-based organisation working for woman and child health. «We have seen on the ground, and the data also shows, that for the first child the sex ratio is not too bad but it is very bad for the second or third child. Families only want a boy,» said Singh, who has been working on gender preference in rural and urban Uttar Pradesh for nearly 18 years.
The foundations of CPEC, part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, were laid in May 2013. China committed to play an integral role in supporting Pakistan’s economy. In June 2019, Ajay Bhatt, a Lok Sabha MP from the BJP, introduced another Population Control Bill, 2019 in the Lok Sabha asking for benefits for single- and two-child families and the removal of benefits and a fine for those who have a third child.
- The concept the nation need to embrace something like China’s previous “one-child policy” has actually been moving from the fringe to the political mainstream.
- Three of the six services, viz., Immunization, Health check-up and Referral Services are related to health and are provided through NHM & Public Health Infrastructure.
- Only 25 per cent of married men use contraceptives as against 48 per cent of married women.
- Punjab and Himachal Pradesh both have TFRs below 2 but only 3% of families seem to stop at one child.
Ministry has issued advisory to all the States/UTs to ensure use of relevant fortified food articles (wherever supplied), including Double Fortified Salt in the administration of the Supplementary Nutrition Programme. Prevent and reduce under-nutrition (underweight prevalence) in children (0-6 years) While this figure does not imply that they will necessarily stop at one child, it nevertheless reflects a new kind of ambiguity – many more women than expected are now willing to even entertain the possibility of stopping at one. Moreover, we do not have any evidence to suggest significant levels of secondary or acquired sterility in India. Childlessness levels are certainly well within the range expected for societies in which STIs or RTIs have not had a major impact on primary sterility and where virtually all childless ness is involuntary (see Pathak and Unisa, 1993).
The demographic discourse on India has remained focused on the first demographic transition with relatively low expectations for below replacement fertility. If a significant cultural transformation and renegotiation of gender roles must precede below replacement fertility, this appears to be far in the future for India, particularly in the populous north-central states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar (Desai et al, 2010). To illustrate this proposition, we look at extremely low fertility in a small fraction of Indian society to see if its behavior is explained better by the processes that usually describe the first demographic transition or those that describe the second. “I do not think there is any question of Hindu population declining. Hardly one or two Hindus or Muslims convert,” he said, adding that “the Constitution gives people the right to do what they like, but nobody can force any person to covert.”
China’s three-child policy is unlikely to be welcomed by working women
In Madhya Pradesh, the policy for elected representatives in local bodies was revoked in 2005, and it is now applicable to government and judicial services in the State. The Andhra Pradesh Assembly passed a bill in 2024 scrapping the policy for local bodies. The couple, both teachers at a government primary school, allegedly told the police they were afraid of losing their jobs upon the birth of their fourth child. Stricter population controls in India could have disastrous consequences for women and minority communities.
India will become the world’s most populous country by 2050, ahead of China, burdening its natural resources and limiting economic growth, it added. Ashwani Kumar Upadhyay, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politician and lawyer, had asked for a law that would deny access to government jobs, subsidies, and certain rights to those with more than two children. The denied rights, as per the petition, would include the right to vote, to property and to free shelter.
As happened at the height of China’s one-child policy, Indians could lose government jobs and more if such laws were passed at the national level. Some Indian states and municipalities have already legislated that people with more than two children are ineligible for government jobs and to stand for political office. (May contain harsh words) People needs to understand the concept of family planning and shouldn’t raise children to which they can’t support.
Bhutan is an excellent example—the empowerment of women helped lower their TFR from 6.6 in the 1960s to 1.98 in 2018. “The lesson here is that when couples are offered a wide range of choices, they are more likely to use a contraceptive. Further, when couples and individuals have greater access to contraceptives early in their reproductive careers, there is a delay in the age of first childbirth and one child policy in india hence, a wider generation gap,” says Piccin. Experts have always questioned the efficacy of a punitive approach to population control. According to PFI, a strict limit on the number of children like the two-child norm will unleash a rapid increase in sex-specific abortions and divorce.
Lest one thinks this is merely a consequence of lower average fertility in the South, it is interesting to compare state total fertility rates with the proportion of one-child families. A low TFR does not automatically lead to a higher proportion of one-child families. Punjab and Himachal Pradesh both have TFRs below 2 but only 3% of families seem to stop at one child.
While the size of the working-age population will decline in 11 out of 22 major states, it will continue to rise in states such as Bihar, UP, MP and Rajasthan. These states could meet the labour deficit in states with an ageing population. However, the challenge will be to convert this ‘young population’ to employable manpower. “In Bihar, around one-third of men, and in UP, one-fifth, are illiterate.