అయ్యా చంద్రన్న , fertility is not a switch to be turned on at will

[andhra_jp]

AP’s chief minister did well highlight the biggest demographic challenge India faces, collapsing fertility rates. However, his solutions ignore a global reality. Humanity is in uncharted waters when it comes to fertility. Exhortations and incentives, such as Naidu’s idea, will not work

Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu last week urged people in southern states to have more children to offset fast declining fertility rates. His government, he added, is planning to start a population management exercise which may see the introduction of a law that could include an eligibility criterion for potential candidates in local body elections to being a parent to more than two children.

If this idea catches on nationally, it may end the electoral career of some of India’s most consequential politicians.

Naidu, right and wrong

Naidu is right to be worried about declining fertility rates. AP has a total fertility rate of 1.7, which is lower than the number required to maintain a stable population.

Demographers refer to a fertility rate of 2.1 as the replacement rate. In plain language, an average of just over two children per woman is needed to maintain a stable population size. When it falls below this the proportion of older population keeps rising.

When fertility rate dips below 2.1, it has far-reaching implications for a society and Naidu deserves credit for bringing it up.

AP, or southern states, are not outliers. They are a part of a global trend, which is now pronounced in India. India’s fertility data from the most recent edition of the central government’s National Family Health Survey shows that 31 of 36 states and union territories have achieved a replacement level fertility of 2.1 or less.

Some states/UTs with a fertility level less than AP are Jammu & Kashmir (1.4), Sikkim (1.1) and West Bengal (1.6). The national average now is 2, less than the replacement rate.

While Naidu did well to call out a national problem, which is plummeting fertility and not a population explosion, his proposed solution is at odds with historical trends and experience of other countries with a similar problem.

Global picture: Humanity is in uncharted waters

Over 50 percent of the world’s economies, accounting for 66 percent of the global population now have fertility rates less than 2.1.

This trend spans continents and cultures.

Societies such as Japan and Singapore have tried to provide generous fiscal incentives to persuade their citizens to have more children. It’s not worked.

It’s the first time in history that societies are voluntarily choosing downsize population. Earlier it was war or disease such as plague which led to population declines. Now, it’s a choice being exercised at the most basic unit in a society, a family. No government so far has been able to reverse this trend.

Complex causes

The bulk of research on fertility boils down its determinants to two factors.

# Quantity-quality tradeoff: Once families go up the income ladder, there’s an emphasis on quality of care, with a relatively larger share spent on education etc. It influences families to voluntarily choose fewer children.

# Women in the workforce: As societies transition out an economy dominated by agriculture to one where industry and services dominate, there are accompanying social changes. One change often seen is that more women enter the workforce, which influences fertility rates. It reflects a “convergence of women’s and men’s overall life plans after a long period of sharply divided gender roles.”

A closer look at fertility data, within India or elsewhere, will show that these two explanations are not really satisfactory. To give one example from within India, a poorer West Bengal has a lower fertility rate than a wealthier Gujarat (1.9).

Social and cultural factors have an important role. Intertwining of economic, social and cultural factors make it hard to reduce fertility trends to a formula.

The only trend, however, which is now irrefutable is that across societies at different levels of prosperity, fertility rates are falling fast. Global peak population may be closer than we think.

What next?

Naidu’s exhortations to have more children or new laws to keep some areas out of bounds for people with less than three children are bound to fail. That’s a lesson to be drawn from failures of governments with more resources and coercive power to reverse declining fertility rates.

It may be time to accept that we are in a phase where there’s no going back to sustained higher fertility rates with conventional tools at the disposal of governments and influential public figures such as religious heads.

Time and resources will be better spent if we accept declining fertility as the new normal and then look for answers to emerging social and economic challenges. And the biggest challenge we face is the prospect that we will grow old before we get rich.