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Journalism of Courage
By 2050, one in five Indians will be a senior citizen while there will be fewer younger people to take care of them. This predictive scenario has been highlighted by a Lancet study, which says that India’s total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born per woman — is dipping irreversibly to 1.29, far lower than the replacement rate of 2.1. This means a rapidly depleting working age population.
As per research estimates from the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries and Risk Factors Study (GBD)-2021, worldwide, too, the TFR has more than halved in the last 70 years – from around five children for each woman in 1950 to 2.2 children in 2021. In India , the TFR was 6.18 in 1950 which reduced to 4.60 in 1980 and further declined to 1.91 in 2021. China is already dealing with the demographic disadvantage of an ageing population. India, too, is heading in that direction. These two nations together account for more than a third of the world’s population.
Prof Anjali Radkar, head of the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy and dean of academic affairs, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, says this scenario was but expected. Post-independence, there was a need to restrict the population. So the Family Welfare Programme, including maternal and child health-related cash transfer inducements, were intended to convince people to have no more than two children. “During that time, the system required a lot of effort to change the mindset of the Indian population. Slowly that behaviour change started showing up. Infant mortality declined substantially (because of various maternal and child health-related programmes and successful immunisation) meaning child survival was guaranteed. Small families became the norm,” explains Prof Radkar.
There is an economic dimension too. With development, the inter-generational flow of wealth has reversed. “This means parents now do not receive much benefit from their children the way they used to. This has influenced their decision to have an additional child that would involve a substantial cost of bringing them up. So this fertility decline was inevitable and we were envisaging it for quite some time,” says Prof Radkar.
The other significant factor has clearly been the rise of female literacy and women’s participation in the workforce. Career consciousness, financial returns and economic independence have meant that women are reconsidering their options of having a second child. In the urban space, many women do not consider child-rearing as a must-do task, are instead choosing not to have babies at all and even considering options like adoption. This pattern is percolating to rural India too.
The consequences of fertility decline will be that the share of the elderly in the population will increase sharply. “By 2050 the share of senior citizens in India will be more than 20 per cent, that is one five people,” says Dr Radkar. “This is what China is already showing signs of as a consequence of the one-child-family policy,” she adds.
Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director of Population Foundation of India, foresees challenges like labour force shortages and potential social imbalances due to gender preferences. “While these challenges are still a few decades away for India, we need to start acting now with a comprehensive approach for the future. We need to learn from Scandinavian countries like Sweden and Denmark, which are dealing with these challenges by supporting new families. They are providing affordable childcare, investing in healthcare and taking on large-scale male-engagement initiatives to build gender equity. For women to be able to manage careers with motherhood, it would be crucial for men to take greater responsibility for household and care work. Economic policies that stimulate growth and job creation, alongside social security and pension reforms, will also be essential in adapting to and mitigating the impacts of declining fertility rates,” she argues.
Researchers estimate that by 2050, 155 of 204 countries (76 per cent of the world) will be below the replacement level of fertility. The number of countries and territories below replacement level is predicted to further increase to 198 (97 per cent) by 2100. “This means that in these locations, populations will shrink unless low fertility can be offset by ethical and effective immigration,” says senior author Prof Stein Emil Vollset from the Institute For Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).
