Focusing on health, education of women will bring down population, increase work participation | The Indian Express

Focusing on health, education of women will bring down population, increase work participation | The Indian Express

Written by Amitabh Kundu |Updated: September 19, 2019 10:17:50 am

The writer is Distinguished Fellow at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries

Focusing on health, education of women will bring down population, increase work participation

Policy-making in India has in recent decades been generally neutral to data and research. However, in matters of demography, particularly while prescribing strong punitive measures for having large families, decisions must be taken based on rigorous analysis of the data to avoid a China type crisis.

A reduction in the share of children and an increase in the adult population are important for achieving a high rate of economic growth since it will lead to an increase in the percentage of the working population.

The World Population Prospects 2019 has reported that India’s total fertility rate (TFR) has declined from 5.9 in early Sixties to 2.4 to 2010-15. TFR is defined as the total number of children to be born to women in her lifetime by the current age specific fertility rates. By 2025-30, it will fall to 2.1, sliding further to 1.9 during 2045-50. As per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), India’s TFR declined from 2.7 in 2005-6 to 2.2 in 2015-16. When the TFR touches 2.1, which is called replacement fertility level, we can say that the population is getting stabilised, subject to the momentum factor. India’s population was predicted to peak at 1.7 billion in 2060, declining to 1.5 billion by 2100. The faster decline in TFR, as reported by NFHS, suggests that these can happen much earlier than predicted. Thus, there seems to be no reason for panic in the context of the demographic trends.