{"id":23631,"date":"2024-04-09T17:53:04","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T12:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/?p=23631"},"modified":"2024-04-09T23:32:19","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T18:02:19","slug":"indias-fall-in-fertility-rate-may-be-a-boon-in-disguise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/editorial-analysis\/09-04-2024\/indias-fall-in-fertility-rate-may-be-a-boon-in-disguise","title":{"rendered":"India\u2019s Fall in Fertility Rate may be a Boon in Disguise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS 1\/Population and Associated Issues \/GS 3\/Economy&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0dab4a35479cb7a88ac0f778de143bb9\" style=\"color:#015aa7\"><strong>In Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Recent study by Lancet on global fertility rates suggests that India\u2019s TFR&nbsp; has been seeing a decline over the last century.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table class=\"has-background\" style=\"background-color:#ebecf0\"><tbody><tr><td><strong>Do you know ?<\/strong><br>&#8211; The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is a standard demographic indicator used internationally to estimate the average number of children that a woman would have over her childbearing years<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-02339204845f259c71872043de38b65b\" style=\"color:#015aa7\"><strong>Finding&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The total fertility rate (TFR) for India is projected to go down to<strong> 1.29 by 2051 from 6.18 children per woman in 1950.<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>This estimate is based on a complex demographic modelling, done for 204 countries as part of the global burden of disease study.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The decline is uneven across states and it will take a decade before all states, especially large ones like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand, achieve the replacement level fertility, which, in the long run, would ensure stabilisation of population<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The<strong> projection by the UN Population Division<\/strong> is that India will have a population of close to 1.7 billion by 2065 before it starts declining.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0b3b514986a912605918faaf995d3048\" style=\"color:#015aa7\"><strong>Causes&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Several factors have jointly triggered a demographic transition in India, the rapid <strong>pace of economic development,<\/strong> particularly since the early years of the present century.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Lower infant and child mortality rates <\/strong>reduce the need to have a large family for old-age support, <strong>backed by the rise in women\u2019s education <\/strong>and <strong>work participation rates<\/strong> and the increasing usage of modern contraception methods.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>&nbsp;Improvement in housing conditions<\/strong> and the old-age security system are the other contributing factors.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Various factors, including obesity, stress, smoking, and environmental pollution, contribute to the declining fertility rates in India<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b9e989b4763819e4dfd6365c64da2906\" style=\"color:#015aa7\"><strong>Impacts&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Positives <\/strong>: The first impact of the rapid decline in TFR is a<strong> fall in the dependency rate<\/strong> and a <strong>larger share of working adults in the populatio<\/strong>n, leading to an <strong>overall surplus income <\/strong>which can<strong> accelerate economic growt<\/strong>h and lead to <strong>positive intergenerational transfers<\/strong>.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The demographic transition will have a positive impact on several states in the coming years through an <strong>increase in labour productivity<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&nbsp;The decline in population growth would increase the <strong>amount of capital resources and infrastructure<\/strong> available in per capita terms.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The reduction in fertility would permit the<strong> relocation of resources for the education and skill developmen<\/strong>t of children rather than expanding the coverage for achieving universalisation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Negatives<\/strong>:&nbsp; It will subsequently result in a<strong> larger share of the elderly dependent population<\/strong>, as is noted in China, Japan and several European countries.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&nbsp;The dependency ratio, taking the young and the old as a fraction of the percentage of the working-age population, is projected to go up from <strong>13.8 in 2011 to 23 in 2036 for India.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It can trigger potential social imbalances due to gender preferences in the country.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Emerging population issues have serious implications for policy, particularly for skill development for women and other underprivileged groups.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e2418cc5398a3a7f2d9236aad7d7492c\" style=\"color:#015aa7\"><strong>Conclusion and Way Forward&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&nbsp;<strong>Economic policies that stimulate growth and job creation<\/strong>, alongside social security and pension reforms are essential in adapting to and mitigating the impacts of declining fertility rates.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>With an ageing population, which will have to be supported in the coming decades by a shrinking workforce, it becomes imperative that India\u2019s economy grows at a strong pace consistently over decades.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>There is also a need to generate employment opportunities that effectively utilize the skills of this demographic.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Skill development <\/strong>can ensure there is no dearth of labour in the modern growing sectors.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table class=\"has-background\" style=\"background-color:#ebecf0\"><tbody><tr><td><strong>Mains Practise Question&nbsp;<br>[Q]<\/strong> Why fertility went down across the globe ?What falling total fertility rate will mean for India?<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Daily-Editorial-Analysis-09-04-2024.pdf\">Download PDF<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recent study by Lancet on global fertility rates suggests that India\u2019s TFR\u00a0 has been seeing a decline over the last century..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-analysis"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23631"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23655,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23631\/revisions\/23655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}