Fertility rate falling, ‘demographic transition’
“The Indian population will stabilize by 2080 at a maximum of 1.9 billion due to the decline in the total fertility rate, currently already below the replacement level”: says Anil Chandran, general secretary of Iasp, the Indian Association for the Study of Population. According to Chandran, “India is going through a rapid demographic transition, with the birth rate declining sharply over the last two decades. In 2000, the total fertility rate was 3.5, today it is 1.9. This is a drastic decline,” he added. Chandran attributes the decline in fertility primarily to rising development and education levels, which directly influence decisions related to marriage and procreation, leading to smaller families.
In India, Kerala, the state with the best social indicators, reached the fertility replacement level between 1987 and 1989 and now has a fertility rate of about 1.5. Among other states in the country, West Bengal also suffered a sharp decline in its total fertility rate, down to 1.3, down from 1.7 in 2013, a decline of nearly 18 percent and well below the replacement level of 2.1; West Bengal now ranks among the lowest in the country, on par with Tamil Nadu and just above Delhi. The Iasp, founded in 1971 and made up of around 1,100 demographers, studies population variations and flows, with the support of institutions such as the UNFPA, the Population Council and the Population Foundation of India.
