India's "high population fears" can be put to rest

The standard belief: Most Indians believe that population control is crucial for making India a prosperous nation. China, currently the world’s second

India's "high population fears" can be put to rest

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• The standard belief: Most Indians believe that population control is crucial for making India a prosperous nation. China, currently the world’s second largest economy and a one-party state since 1949, enforced a one-child norm in the 1980s. Four decades later, China is now encouraging couples to have three children!
• Religious polarisation: The population control debate is especially tricky in India due to the religious polarisation around it. Demographic experts say that the logic of uncontrolled population explosion is used (directly or indirectly) to politically target Muslims, the largest religious minority group in the country. In June 2021, the Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma asked the minority community for effective population control measures. Following Assam, now UP is talking about introducing a two-child norm for entitlement to government benefits.
• What are the facts: The numerical and statistical facts are very different from whatever the politicians may want you to believe.
1. India’s population growth peaked long time ago. India will overtake China as the most populous country by 2025 or perhaps sooner. But this does not mean that India is undergoing a population explosion. Statistics show that India’s population growth peaked decades ago and it is already on a downward trajectory.
2. According to the United Nation’s population projections, India’s population will increase by a multiple of 1.09 between 2021 and 2031. This number was 1.25 between 1981 and 1991. From 2060 onwards, India’s population will start falling, which happens when fertility rate falls below replacement levels. By 2100, which is as far as UN population projections go to, India’s population will be 1.45 billion after having peaked at 1.65 billion in 2059.
3. A high population is not necessarily a bad thing for the economy. A low population, i.e. fewer workers, also means a scarcity of productive hands in the economy. This generates headwinds, rather than tailwinds for economic growth. An increasing share of older people in its popualtion, thanks to its one-child policy, is what has forced China to abandon the old policy and encourage couple to have more children.
4. India needs to focus on exploiting its demographic dividend rather than worry about it. India is poised at a unique moment in history, where it can exploit its demographic advantage to realise its economic goals. According to the government’s population projections, 53.6% of India’s population in 2021 is under the age of 29. More than a quarter of India’s population is 14 years or younger. This young cohort can become extremely productive or unproductive depending on the skill sets it acquires.
5. Muslims do have higher fertility rates, but they are a minority when it comes to total families with more than two children. There is an element of truth to the assertion that Muslims tend to have higher fertility rates in India. While some of this can be explained by their relative socio-economic backwardness, an analysis using NFHS data had found that Muslims have a higher share of married women with more than two children than Hindus, even in same education and wealth cohorts.
6. What the proponents of such "exclusionary politics" are not realising is that in case the government were to formulate any policies which exclude families with more than two-children, 83% of the affected families would be Hindus! Not only is such a policy regressive (it will hurt the ‘have-nots’ more than the ‘haves’) it will also fail to achieve its communal design as more Hindus will suffer than Muslims.
• Summary: Data from successive rounds of NFHS clearly show that TFR for Hindus and Muslims was 3.3 and 4.41 in the first round of NFHS in 1992-93. It was down to 2.13 and 2.62 respectively in the fourth round in 2015-16. This means that TFR has fallen by 40.6% for Muslims during this period, more than 35.5% decline for Hindus. Even the ratio of Muslim-Hindu TFR has come down from 1.34 in 1992-93 to 1.23 in 2015-16. 

 

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