Total fertility rate (TFR) refers to the total number of children born or likely to be born to a woman during her reproductive span of 15-49 years. According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5, TFR has declined from 2.2 in 2015-16 to 2.0 in 2019-21. This dip in fertility is attributed to a combination of factors, including better contraception initiatives, female literacy and government health and family welfare schemes.
This fall in fertility rates is bound to have positive connotations for our country, whose population is set to surpass that of China by 2030. For example, it would lead to stability of the population in the long term. Further, lower fertility impacts women’s education positively, which in turn lowers the fertility of the next generations. Moreover, it will lead to lower pressure on land, water and other resources and would contribute to achieving India’s environmental goals.
However, the decline of TFR in India has been asynchronous. For example, only five states (Bihar, Meghalaya, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Manipur) in India are above replacement level of fertility of 2.1. Further, it is skewed with respect to the urban-rural divide. For instance, the TFR of a rural woman is 2.2 while that of an urban woman is 1.6. These, asynchronous fertility rates cannot bring down the country’s population holistically and need to be addressed because:

• Declining economic output: A fall in fertility rate below 2.1 levels would have a negative effect on the proportion of the working population thus affecting the economic output of the states with low fertility rates. For instance, Japan and South Korea were pioneers of falling fertility rates in the early 2000s, but are now facing a crunch of the working age population.
• Demographic divide: India’s demographic divide will no longer be confined to north-south divide, but will become more complex, demarcating the eastern, western and northern states from the fast-growing central states. For instance, the fertility rates in central states like Bihar and UP are asynchronous vis-à-vis the rest of major Indian states.
• Social unrest: An influx of immigrants from regions & states with higher population growth to compensate for the falling working population may pose other challenges such as class and social conflicts.
• Higher dependency ratio: Declining population will lead to an increase in the population of old aged people, as is happening in China. Thus, a high dependency ratio will increase pressure on government finances, which will vary for different states and thus public finance will be affected badly as need to substantially invest in care for the elderly.
• Increasing female sterilization: The NFHS survey reveals that the uptake of female sterilisation has gone up to 38% against 36% in 2015-16. The increase in female sterilisation across Indian states shows that the onus of family planning remains with women, with men not participating in the process and shrugging responsibility.

Though the benefits of demographic dividend are being reaped, the below replacement level fertility rate would mean a smaller dividend window than expected for India. The governments at both Centre and state level need to engineer their policies to harness the opportunity. There is a need to formulate state-specific policies to take care of higher medical costs as the population ages and productivity shrinks. Further, liberal labour reforms, encouraging higher female labour force participation rate, and a higher focus on nutrition and health would ensure sustained labour supply and output despite lower fertility.