India’s fertility rate decreased from 2019 to 2021 according to newly released data from India’s latest National Family Health Survey, Asian News International (ANI) reported on Saturday.
India’s total fertility rate dropped from 2.2 to 2.0 over the two-year period spanning 2019 to 2021, according to the fifth round of India’s National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5).
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines “total fertility rate” as the “total number of children that would be born to each woman if she were to live to the end of her child-bearing years and give birth to children in alignment with the prevailing age-specific fertility rates.”
“[A] total fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman ensures a broadly stable population,” the OECD notes.
The NFHS-5 revealed that just five out of India’s 28 states recorded fertility rates above 2.1 from 2019 to 2021.
“These states are Bihar (2.98), Meghalaya (2.91), Uttar Pradesh (2.35), Jharkhand (2.26) and Manipur (2.17),” the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported on May 9.
New Delhi praised itself in the NFHS-5 report for having made “significant progress in population control measures” in recent years, which it said had contributed to India’s waning fertility rate, according to PTI. These measures include the public promotion of contraception and birth control. India’s contraception prevalence rate increased from 54 percent in 2019 to 67 percent in 2021.
“Use of modern methods of contraceptives has also increased in almost all States/UTs [Union Territories]. Unmet needs for family planning have witnessed a significant decline from 13 per cent to 9 per cent,” India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said in an official statement, as quoted by ANI.
Poonam Muttreja, the executive director of the Population Foundation of India, told PTI on May 9 that, moving forward, New Delhi must continue providing “sexual and reproductive health information and services, education, skill building and gender equality initiatives for the young population.”
The NFHS-5 study further revealed a demographic variation in fertility rates across India, with Muslims having more children than the country’s Hindu majority, according to PTI.
“The TFR [total fertility rate] varies from a low of 1.4 children per woman among Buddhists/Neo-Buddhists to a high of 2.4 children per woman among Muslims. The Muslim community’s fertility rate, however, remains the highest among all religious communities, with the Hindu community following at 1.94 in NFHS-5,” the news agency relayed.
India’s population is estimated at 1.38 billion, or the second-largest in the world after China. About 79.8 percent of the Indian populace is Hindu, while 14.2 percent is Muslim. Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs, and Jains account for most of the remaining six percent of India’s population.
“India … is expected have 311 million Muslims in 2050 (11 percent of the global total), making it the country with the largest population of Muslims in the world,” Pew Research Center reported in 2015.
Pew said it believed India’s Muslim population would grow faster than its Hindu counterpart because Muslims had consistently demonstrated “the youngest median age and the highest fertility rates among major religious groups in India.”
“In 2010, the median age of Indian Muslims was 22, compared with 26 for Hindus and 28 for Christians. Likewise, Muslim women have an average of 3.2 children per woman, compared with 2.5 for Hindus and 2.3 for Christians,” the research center observed at the time.
“Due to these factors, India’s Muslim community will expand faster than its Hindu population, rising from 14.4 percent in 2010 to 18.4 percent in 2050,” Pew predicted.
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