India’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has fallen to 2.0, as measured by the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 5 (2019-21), which is below the replacement rate of 2.1. Global trends show fertility rates are hard to reverse once they start to decline, even with strong incentives-for example, countries like Germany and South Korea have introduced cash benefits, but these have had a limited impact.
Fertility trends are unlikely to also reverse in India, with gains in women’s literacy being an important factor. The cost of having multiple children is also likely to continue to be prohibitively expensive in absence of a welfare state providing free quality education and childcare.
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There are clear damages to a country from a population that is declining with an increase in the dependency ratio, difficulty in funding entitlement programs, potential persistent deflation, and a decline in potential GDP growth. Demographics are, in fact, one of the greatest challenges that many higher-income economies are facing today, with a lower working share of the population and a higher share in need of economic support, causing an unsustainable financial situation and a negative effect on the productive capacity of the economy.
However, the concern over the impact of this is limited in India.
First, the population of India is still growing and is likely to overtake China’s next year. According to the World Bank, India needs to create over 8 million jobs a year just to maintain its current employment level. Population decline will still take around 30 years and the population will peak at around 1.6 billion, so it is seen as a problem for the future.
Second, population growth has historically been perceived as negative in India and many Indians see the country as overpopulated. Consistent government messaging has helped reinforce this and slogans like “Hum Do Humare Do” (two of us, two of ours) have become part of popular culture. Changing people’s mindset towards population growth is a major challenge.
Third, divisive politics around real or perceived population growth has been proven effective, especially to demonise minority communities or poorer cow-belt states, where the TFR is still above the replacement rate.
Government policy towards population is ambiguous. While the Centre filed an affidavit in 2020 in the Supreme Court, stating that its Family Welfare Programme was voluntary and no one was subject to any compulsion, this was contradicted by local government statements and policy. There have been Bills (albeit unsuccessful so far) introduced in an attempt to control the population, such as a Private Member’s Bill introduced in February 2020 that stated that the “State shall promote small family norms by offering incentives in taxes, employment, education, etc, to its people who keep their family limited to two children and shall withdraw every concession from and deprive such incentives to those not adhering to small family norm, to keep the growing population under control.” The head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), arguably the most powerful cultural organisation in the country, called for a population control policy that applied to all in October 2022.
There already exist several restrictive practices at a state level (across states ruled by the BJP, Congress, and regional parties)-Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh have prevented people with over two children from contesting local body polls and from government jobs.
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The Union government should clearly communicate the dangers of a declining population to better educate the country. It should consistently ascertain that there is no plan to control population and rebuke its ministers or members who contradict this.
It should encourage states to remove laws that discriminate against those with more than two children and use the judicial route to take actions against states that don’t do so. Doing this will ensure that democratic freedoms enshrined in the constitution of India are upheld and the government’s principle of minimum government-maximum governance is adhered to, with the government not interfering in people’s family lives.
The eccentric but prescient Elon Musk claims that population collapse is the biggest threat to civilisation. Even taking this with a pinch of salt, the economic consequences of a declining population are eventually to be felt, even more so with India not being a magnet for skilled immigrants. Delaying them as long as possible is in the country’s best interest.
The writer is co-founder of http://www.grow-trees.com