The glib talk of a “demographic dividend” seems to have erased all concern about population growth from public discourse in India. The term “family planning”, or even the politically correct term of “family welfare” has all but disappeared from the national lexicon, including the Economic Survey and Budget documents. At a time when even China is, in fact, reviewing its ‘one child’ policy and many economies around the world are more worried about ageing, India is one of the world’s youngest countries with more than half the population below 30 years of age. Also, the fertility rate, or the number of children per woman, has been declining steadily, almost halving from the late sixties through 2009. In several states where prosperity and education levels are higher — Andhra, Kerala, Punjab — among them fertility rates have fallen below replacement levels, putting them on a par with some advanced nations. These numbers are reassuring but don’t tell the full story. Large parts of India are yet to make the demographic transition to lower fertility rates.
On an all-India basis, the fertility rate at 2.76 is still significantly behind China’s 1.77, no doubt the result of the latter’s stringent one child policy. As a recent article by Indicus Analytics in this newspaper pointed out, using one estimate of constant fertility rate, India’s population is set to exceed China’s by 2022, just 11 years from now. This date could be postponed by 18 years to 2029 if we use a lower fertility assumption. Either way, India is going to have a lot of people. Global corporations and businessmen see this in terms of burgeoning potential markets for a range of consumer goods and a useful talent pool. But as the Indicus Analytics analysis pointed out, these numbers may set out probable scenarios but “they do give some pointer to the huge resource requirements ahead for feeding, clothing and housing India’s growing population”. Ergo: it’s no point having lots of people if they are neither educated properly nor healthy. This is certainly a major issue even today; despite being among the world’s top ten fastest growing economies, the Human Development Indicators (HDI) provide a depressing dampener ever year. India’s 2010 HDI ranking was 119 (among 169 countries), to China’s 89, Brazil’s 73 and Russia’s 65, putting it way behind all its BRIC competitors.
Despite strenuous efforts and some notable successes (in primary schooling, for example), the centre and state governments’ ability to provide its 1.2 billion people with adequate health, sanitation and education remains poor, more so in the rural areas where the bulk of the population lives. Going by its token investments in social sector schemes, any improvement on this track record is likely to be incremental. With poorer states still recording high rates of population growth, India needs a vigorous family-planning campaign, especially in these states. The two-child —“hum do, hamare do” campaign must be relaunched and the pro-girl child campaign must also be stepped up.
