India is experiencing a decline in its fertility rate, despite having a population of nearly 1.46 billion. Recent reports have noted this decrease, with various state governments coming out with incentives for people to have more babies.
However, it seems that South India has more to worry about in this case, considering that population growth has slowed here compared to North India.
In November 2024, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu revoked the two-decade-old policy of not allowing people with more than two children to run for local body elections after the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare data showed the state’s fertility rate had dipped to 1.5 per cent as of 2020.
Recently, an Andhra Pradesh MP announced incentives of Rs. 50,000 for a girl child and a cow for a boy child in March, encouraging couples to have a third child.
It is not just South India battling with this, but other regions too, including North-East India. In 2023, the Sikkim government offered rewards to government women employees who had more than one child, specifically since at the time the region was the least populous state. Rewards included a special increment for a second child, and it was doubled if the female employees had a third child, along with 365 days of maternity leave and 30 days of paternity leave.
Which State Is Seeing A Bigger Birth Rate?
As per the Vital Statistics of India, which is based on the Civil Registration System report released by the Office of the Registrar General of India, India witnessed 2.5 crore births in 2022. Among these, Uttar Pradesh, with 54.4 lakh births, recorded the highest number of registered births. Bihar came in second with 30.7 lakh births and Maharashtra third with 19.2 lakh. Southern states, including Karnataka (10.4 lakh), Tamil Nadu (9.4 lakh), Kerala (4.4 lakh), Telangana (7 lakh) and Andhra Pradesh (7.5 lakh), however, saw a decline in their birth registrations compared to earlier years.
India Today’s Data Intelligence Unit reported that the states recording births above 15 lakh in 2022 were.
- Uttar Pradesh
- Bihar
- Maharastra
- Rajasthan
- and Madhya Pradesh
Another thing to focus on besides just population growth is the balancing of gender imbalance that still plagues the country. As per recent reports, data from the Vital Statistics of India based on the Civil Registration System (CRS) report shows Bihar to have the lowest sex ratio at birth (SRB) in the country for 2022. Despite having high birth numbers, it saw only 891 girls being born for every 1,000 boys.
It is also the only state to see a consecutive annual decline in the sex ratio at birth, going from 2020 seeing 964 girls per 1,000 boys to 2021 seeing a drop to 908 and then a further decline to 891 in 2022. Maharashtra, with a sex ratio of 906, Telangana at 907, Gujarat standing at 908, and Haryana with 916 do not seem to be faring better.
Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh are in the top two spots, having the highest sex ratio in India, with 1,068 and 1,036 girls, respectively, per 1,000 boys.
This shows that while North Indian regions might have a higher birth rate, that does not mean they are out of trouble, given their poor sex ratio.
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The reason why politicians seem to be encouraging people to have more kids comes from a fear of losing representation in Parliament due to a low population, in light of the delimitation exercise.
However, why is the population declining?
Prof Anjali Radkar, head of the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy and dean of academic affairs at Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, speaking with the Indian Express last year, commented on how this could have been due to India’s planning programmes that had aggressively promoted just a maximum of two children, thus leading to small families growing in numbers.
She said, “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.”
Besides this, reasons including female literacy and women’s participation in the workforce rising, but the family setup still being patriarchal with little help from husbands, are being seen as why women do not want to have more children.
This could be seen as a positive, as education and access to reproductive healthcare “has led to major reductions in maternal mortality, meaning millions more mothers are alive today, raising children and building communities. Yet, deep inequalities persist across states, castes, and income groups,” as said by Andrea M Wojnar, UNFPA India Representative, to PTI.
The one area of concern with a slow birth rate could be a change in demographics where the ageing population rises in numbers, and the young workforce sees a reduction. The Indian Express quoted Dr Radkar stating that “By 2050, the share of senior citizens in India will be more than 20 per cent, that is one in five people. This is what China is already showing signs of as a consequence of the one-child family policy,” last year.
This does mean that Indian healthcare needs to provide focus on the ageing population and ensure that means to take care of them are in place, such as old-age homes, community centres, social infrastructure and more.
Amitabh Kundu, Professor Emeritus at L J University, Ahmedabad, in an Indian Express article last year, wrote, “The other challenge is to create decent full or part-time work for people in the age group of 60 to 75 years. Presently, their work participation is higher than most developing countries and the world because household survival strategies force them to enter the labour market. The imperative, instead, should be to relieve them from the drudgery of work while also providing decent employment. The country’s healthcare system needs to improve and building old age homes for the elderly single and couple is long overdue.”
Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director of Population Foundation of India, also talked about how it is important for men to start taking household responsibility seriously if women are to take their place in the labour market.
She said, “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.”
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: Firstpost, India Today, Business Standard
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This post is tagged under: Babies, Babies india, india birth rate, india birth ratio, india birth rate states, indian states birth rate, india birth registration, india gender balance
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