Fixing fertility

Keep focus on mother and child care

The United Nations has revised upwards by 48 million its projection of India's population in 2050 - from its 2001 projection of 1.572 billion to the 2012 revised figure of 1.620 billion (both assuming a moderate change in fertility). It may not look like much, but it is not clear from related figures what the change can be attributed to. A rise in the total fertility rate (births per woman) can lead to a rise in numbers, but that's actually gone down from 2.1 projected in 2001 to 1.92 in the latest projection. Similarly, a higher life expectancy at birth (people living longer) can raise total numbers, but even here the projections are in the opposite direction - from 75.4 years (2001) to 72.9 years (2012). So the change can be attributed to two possible factors: a higher figure for net inward migration, or a change in methodology and data quality. In the case of certain African countries, a sharp rise in fertility has been attributed to under-reporting earlier. Similarly, the population in the 0-4 age group in India's 2001 census was under-reported.

Regardless, is India going in the right direction? Has it adopted the right policies for that? India's aim is to reach the replacement rate in fertility of 2.1, at which level the population should level out. Progress on this front has been reasonable. In the 2005-10 period, the fertility rate went down from 2.9 to 2.5, that is by 14 per cent. But to answer the question as to why things could not have been better, it is necessary to look at the huge variation between states - from 1.7 for Kerala, equivalent to Canada's, to 3.4 for Bihar, equivalent to Pakistan's. The policy prescription is obvious. States like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have to get their act together and aspire to be like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. Things can improve quickly, as shown by Rajasthan; or a state can punch above its weight, as Odisha does at 2.3 - which is better than 2.5 of Narendra Modi's Gujarat! But any notion that India is doing well has to be rejected by looking at the remarkable progress made by Bangladesh, which at 2.2 has a better fertility rate than India and, importantly, will not lose this lead even by 2050.

Overall, it has to be remembered that an excessively sharp fall in the fertility rate to below the replacement level, as has happened in the case of China, can lead to a population ageing too fast with the attendant downside. So India must keep its primary focus on improving mother and child care and hope better educated and healthier young women will lead the country in the right direction. A poor country has much to gain by having its population grow slowly but steadily, as that keeps the number of people in the working age high without the overall number going up too far or fast.