This is big news not just for India but, seeing that its 1.4bn people are nearly a fifth of humanity, for the planet. The number of Indians will still grow, because many young women have yet to reach child-bearing age. But lower fertility means the population will peak sooner and at a lower figure: not in 40 years at more than 1.7bn, as was widely predicted, but probably a decade earlier, at perhaps 1.6bn.
It took 25 years for the fertility rate to fall to 5. Impatient at this progress, Indira Gandhi, who was then the prime minister, took drastic action. During the Emergency of 1975-77, when she ruled by decree, her son Sanjay led a notorious campaign of forced sterilisation. This set back many reasonable policies, such as promoting the voluntary use of contraceptives, though they later returned.
The share of parents using contraception continues to grow. More than two-thirds of couples now do, compared with 54% five years ago. Another striking change is a steadily rising age of marriage. In the 2005-06 survey, the proportion of women aged 20-24 who had already been married at 18 stood at 47%. This has dropped by half in 15 years, to 23%, meaning that women are spending fewer child-bearing years with a partner. Improving education has also had an impact.
The Indian government’s new numbers may curtail these execrable suggestions. Fertility among Indian Muslims is generally higher than among Hindus. This is in part because so many are poor. But the difference has steadily narrowed; between 2005 and 2015 the fertility rate among Indian Muslims dropped from 3.4 to 2.6.
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