For The First Time, Fertility Rate Falls Below Replacement Level In India: What It Means

For the first time ever, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR), or the average number of children per woman, has declined further from 2.2 reported in 2015-16 to 2.0 at the all-India level, according to the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS) released by the Union Health Ministry Wednesday.

The data in NFHS 2019-21, the fifth in the survey series, shows the fertility rate at 1.6 per cent in urban areas and 2.1 in rural India.

What is Replacement Fertility?

'Replacement level fertility' is a technical term that seems almost self-explanatory.

Replacement level fertility is the level of fertility at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next.

In developed countries, replacement level fertility can be taken as requiring an average of 2.1 children per woman. In countries with high infant and child mortality rates, however, the average number of births may need to be much higher.

Three states with TFR above replacement level

Among larger states, there are now just three states ¡ª Bihar (3.0), Uttar Pradesh (2.4), and Jharkhand (2.3) ¡ª with a TFR above replacement level.

From NFHS-3 in 2005-06, when India¡¯s TFR was 2.7, it dropped to 2.2 by 2015-16.

Reuters

Between NFHS-3 and the latest NFHS-5 in 2019-21, some of the most populous states, such as Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar in that order, showed a significant decline in TFR, which has helped India's overall rate fall below the replacement level.

The rural TFR is above replacement level only in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand among the larger states and in Meghalaya, Manipur, and Mizoram among the smaller states.

The lowest fertility rate among the larger states is in Jammu and Kashmir. It is also the state that recorded the highest decline of 0.6 in fertility rate between the lat NFHS survey in 205-16 and the latest one.

How TFR impacts a country

With TFR rates coming down, it essentially means that the country need not worry about a very large population being a challenge to our development.

(NHFS-5) finding that the total fertility rate (TFR) has fallen from 2.2 to 2.0 busts the population explosion myth and shows that India must steer away from coercive measures of population control, the Population Foundation of India said.

PTI

The fall in TFR -- the average number of children per woman -- is a significant feat, PFI Executive Director Poonam Muttreja said a day after the Union Health Ministry released the complete set of findings from the fifth round of the NFHS, the most comprehensive data on health and family welfare issues.

"The Population Foundation of India welcomes that India's total fertility rate (TFR) - the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime-now stands at 2.0. This is below the replacement level of TFR, at which the population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next," Muttreja was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

"This is a significant feat for the country's family-planning programme, which does not include coercive policies. These findings bust the population-explosion myth and show that India must steer away from coercive measures of population control," she added.

A lower population can actually improve broader standards of living.

For more on news and current affairs from around the world please visit Indiatimes News.