Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Costs, careers and choice: Why Indians are having fewer children
The total fertility rate (TFR) is the average number of children a woman
would have over her lifetime. Though it had been declining gradually over
decades, India’s TFR was still above 3.0 births per woman in the 2000s. Recently,
however, it has fallen below 2.1, the replacement level to keep the population
stable. Even though the figure remains higher than in other developed countries,
the downward trend of the fertility rate reflects fundamental changes in India’s
society. The drop in TFR in developed communities such as Delhi and Bengaluru, and Southern states with good health and education systems like Kerala, is as
significant as in another populous country, China. In the meantime, in poorer
states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, with lower education levels and higher infant
mortality rates, fertility rates are twice as high as those in high-income
states. Better education, career development, lower child mortality rates, changes
in family values, along with inflation, seem to have led India’s women to choose
to have fewer or no children. The world’s most populous country is now facing
the same problem as other developed countries.
Read the article and learn about the changes and factors behind the
falling fertility rate in India.
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