The number of children per woman has been declining but the poorer skew the record
According to the United Nations Population Division’s projections, by one estimate of constant fertility rate, India’s population is set to exceed that of China in 2022; using a lower fertility assumption, this year is pushed ahead to 2029. These are, of course, estimates that set out probable scenarios. However, they do give some pointer to the huge resource requirements ahead for feeding, clothing and housing India’s growing population. India’s total fertility rate, that is, the number of children per woman, has been declining over the years, but not as sharply as China’s, where the one-child policy has been implemented fairly stringently. Though the fertility rate in rural India is higher at 2.98 compared to the urban rate of 2.06 in the National Family Health Survey’s third Round, (NFHS-3, 2005-06), rural fertility has fallen over the past decade from 3.67 estimated by NFHS-1 (1993-94).
Fertility is strongly correlated to wealth and education levels. The total fertility rate or TFR decreases steeply by the household’s wealth index, from 3.9 children for women living in households in the lowest wealth quintile to 1.8 children for women living in households in the highest wealth quintile. The TFR for India is 1.8 children higher for women with no education than for women with 12 or more years of education. (Click here for graph)
NFHS-3 data showed wide disparity among states from four children per women in Bihar to 1.79 in Andhra Pradesh and Goa. Most of the states, 18 out of the 29 whose data are estimated, have TFRs lower than the national average of 2.68. The reason for this skewed distribution is the relatively high fertility in a few northern states with large populations — Bihar (4.0), Uttar Pradesh (3.8), Rajasthan (3.2), and Madhya Pradesh (3.1). Other states with TFRs above 3.0 include Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Nagaland — these states also have large tribal communities. In the west and the south, fertility is low; except for Gujarat with a TFR of 2.4, all others have replacement fertility levels of 2.1 or less.
| RATE AGAINST TIME Total fertility rate estimates (number of children per woman) | |||||
| Country | 1965-1970 | 1975-1980 | 1985-1990 | 1995-2000 | 2005-2010 |
| India | 5.64 | 4.89 | 4.15 | 3.46 | 2.76 |
| China | 5.94 | 2.93 | 2.63 | 1.80 | 1.77 |
| Source: United Nations Population Division | |||||
With growing incomes and educational profiles of women, there has been rapid change in fertility preferences over the years. For instance, over the 13 years between NFHS-1 and NFHS-3, the percentage of women with one living child who say they do not want more children doubled from 14 per cent to 28 per cent. The percentage of women with two living children who want no more increased from 60 to 83 per cent. Even among women with no education, more than three quarters were inclined to have only two children in the early 2000s. However, here again state-wide disparities showed up — more than 90 per cent of women with two living children wanted to stop childbearing in Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Sikkim, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The percentage of women with two living children who want to stop childbearing is lowest in Meghalaya (36 per cent), Mizoram (43 per cent), Nagaland (58 per cent) and Bihar (60 per cent).
Clearly, there is an increasing trend towards a “hum do, humaare do” family and this proportion would undoubtedly have increased since the time the survey was conducted. However, it remains to be seen how fast states with relatively high fertility rates catch up with the rest of India.
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Indian States Development Scorecard, a weekly feature by Indicus Analytics, focuses on the progress in India and across the states across various socio-economic parameters.