India already has 1.45 billion people. Why does it want more children?

Last month, India nudged earlier China to become the world’s most populous state, according to UN projections.

With almost 1.45 billion people today, you’d think the country may be silent about having more children. But suppose what? The conversation has unapologetically gotten loud.

Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have lately made child advocates for both of the southern states.

Andhra Pradesh is mulling providing incentives, citing low fertility rates and ageing population. The state also scrapped its “two-child policy” for local body elections, and reports say neighbouring Telangana may soon do the same. Next-door Tamil Nadu is also making similar, more exaggerated, noises.

India’s reproduction rate has drastically decreased, from 5 births per woman in 1950 to the current two-birth level.

In 17 of the 29 states and territories, fertility prices have fallen below the replacement rate of two births per person. ( A replacement level is one where a population level of one is sufficient to support a stable population. )

The five southwestern Indian state lead India’s demographic change, achieving replacement-level reproduction well ahead of people. Kerala reached the breakthrough in 1988, Tamil Nadu in 1993, and the rest by the mid-2000s.

Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, the five southern state, each having a reproduction rate of less than 1.6 and Tamil Nadu, the other two. In other words, these claims have lower fertility rates than many other European nations.

However, these states worry that India’s shifting demographics, which vary in community levels between states, does have a significant impact on parliamentary seats and federal revenues.

They fear being punished for their powerful population control measures, despite being better monetary performers and making a sizable contribution to national revenues, according to Srinivas Goli, a teacher of demography at the International Institute for Population Sciences.

Southern states are also grappling with another major concern as India prepares for its first delimitation of electoral seats in 2026 – the first since 1976.

This workout will redraw political boundaries to reveal population shifts, good reducing political seats for the financially developed southern states. Many people worry that this will cause their financial problems and restrict the ability to make decisions about federal funding because position groups are allocated.

Demographers KS James and Shubhra Kriti project that populous northern states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar stand to gain more seats from delimitation, while southern states such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh could face losses, further shifting political representation.

Many, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have hinted that changes to fiscal shares and parliamentary seat allocations will not be rushed through.

” As a et, I don’t believe claims may be unduly concerned about these issues. According to Mr. Goli, they can be resolved through fruitful agreements between the federal and state governments. ” My issue lies somewhere”.

The crucial challenge, according to practitioners, is India’s fast age driven by declining fertility rates. India is expected to reach this milestone in just 28 years, according to Mr. Goli, while countries like France and Sweden took 120 and 80 years, respectively, to double their aging population from 7 % to 14 %.

This accelerated age is related to India’s unique ability to reverse a decline in reproduction. In most places, improved living requirements, training, and urbanisation normally lower fertility as baby survival improves.

But in India, reproduction rates fell fast despite modest socio-economic improvement, thanks to violent family welfare programmes that promoted little families through targets, incentives, and disincentives.

The unintended consequence? Take Andhra Pradesh, for instance. Its fertility rate is 1.5, on par with Sweden, but its per capita income is 28 times lower, says Mr Goli. With mounting debt and limited resources, can states like these support higher pensions or social security for a rapidly aging population?

Consider this. More than 40% of elderly Indians (60 years) belong to the poorest wealth quintile – the bottom 20% of a population in terms of wealth distribution, according to United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)’s latest India Ageing Report.

In other words, Mr Goli says,” India is getting older before getting rich”.

Fewer children even indicate a rising age dependency ratio, which means fewer caretakers for an expanding elderly population. Practitioners warn that India’s care, community centres and old-age homes are ready for this change.

Urbanisation, migration, and changing labour markets are more eroding classic family support- India’s solid point- leaving more elderly people on.

While migration from populous to less populous states can ease the working-age gap, it also sparks anti-migration anxieties. ” Robust investments in prevention, palliative care, and social infrastructure are urgently needed to look after the ageing”, says Mr Goli.

As if the southern states’ concerns weren’t enough, earlier this month, the chief of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteers’ Organisation), the ideological backbone of Mr Modi’s BJP – urged couples to have at least three children to secure India’s future. “According to population science, when growth falls below 2.1, a society perishes on its own. Nobody destroys it,” Mohan Bhagwat reportedly said at a recent meeting.

While Mr Bhagwat’s concerns may have some basis, they are not entirely accurate, say demographers. Following a decade or two of declining population, Tim Dyson, a demographer at the London School of Economics, predicted that if people continued to have “very low levels of fertility,” they would experience” shortening population decline.”

A fertility rate of 1.8 births per woman leads to a slow, manageable population decline. But a rate of 1.6 or lower could trigger “rapid, unmanageable population decline”.

” Smaller numbers of people will enter the reproductive- and main working- ages, and this will be socially, politically and economically disastrous. According to Mr. Dyson, this is a demographic process that is extremely challenging to reverse.

This is already happening in some countries.

In May, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared the country’s record-low birth rate a “national emergency” and announced plans for a dedicated government ministry. Greece’s fertility rate has plummeted to 1.3, half of what it was in 1950, sparking warnings from Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis about an “existential” population threat.

Demographers contend that it is pointless to encourage more children. This trend is unlikely to change, according to Mr. Dyson, given the societal shifts that have occurred, including the significant reduction in gender disparities as women’s lives have become more and more similar to those of men.

For Indian states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala, grappling with a declining workforce, the key question is: who will step in to fill the gap? Developed nations are focusing on healthy and active ageing, prolonging working life by five to seven years and increasing productivity in older populations, unable to reverse declining fertility.

Demographers say India will need to extend retirement ages meaningfully, and policies must prioritise increasing healthy years through better health screenings, and stronger social security to ensure an active and productive older population – a potential “silver dividend”.

India must also leverage its demographic dividend better- economic growth that occurs when a country has a large, working-age population. Mr Goli believes there’s a window of opportunity until 2047 to boost the economy, create jobs for the working-age population, and allocate resources for the ageing. ” We’re only reaping 15-20 % of the dividend- we can do much better”, he says.