© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Expressing concern over the ageing population in the southern states, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said last week that people in the state should have more children, and said his government was planning to bring in legislation to incentivise this. On Monday, Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin quoted an old blessing, wishing people 16 children, while pointing out that the South’s lower fertility rates could translate to diminished political power after delimitation.
As fertility rates fall, India as a country is ageing – with one in every five persons expected to be above 60 years of age by 2050. But the effect will be even more pronounced in the southern states, explaining the concerns of Naidu and Stalin.
As per the India Ageing Report 2023 prepared by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), the elderly population in Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana is not only already high as compared to states in the North such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, but will also increase at a much higher rate between 2021 and 2036.
In Kerala, the share of the elderly in the population is set to increase from 16.5% in 2021 to 22.8% in 2036, or a rise of little above 6%. Tamil Nadu will see an even higher increase from 13.7% to 20.8%, Andhra will see a similar rise from 12.3% to 19%, the Karnataka elderly will surge from 11.5% of the population to 17.2% and Telangana’s from 11% to 17.1%.
In contrast, Bihar will see its elderly population go up from 7.7% of the population to 11% (a rise of 3.3%). Uttar Pradesh will see an almost similar increase from 8.1% of the population to 11.9%. Jharkhand’s rise will be from 8.4% to 12.2%, Rajasthan’s from 8.5% to 12.8%, and Madhya Pradesh’s the same, from 8.5% to 12.8%.
Roughly, while the proportion of the elderly in the population will increase in the 15-year period under consideration by 6-7% in the South, this will be about 3-4% in the North.
As per the same report, the ‘ageing index measure’ – the number of elderly (above 60 years) per 100 children (below 15 years) – will be higher in the South and West compared to the Central and Northeast regions.
While the southern states collectively will have 61.7 elderly per 100 children by 2036, the number for Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan together would be 38.9 elderly per 100 children.
In the Central India states of Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, the figure will be even lower – 27.8 elderly for 100 children.
‘Old age dependency ratio’ or the number of elderly persons compared to 100 people in the working age group of 15 to 59 years will correspondingly be higher in the South, at 19.4, compared to 15.2 in the North and 13.3 in Central India by 2036.
Srinivas Goli, associate professor in demographics at the IIPS, Mumbai, said that the concerns regarding an ageing population are real. “In India, the discourse has been mostly anti-natalist, that is veering towards birth control, because that is required in states such as (high-population) Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and so on. But India is also a diverse country, where most South Indian states have reached the fertility levels of developed countries in the world.”
Goli, a foremost voice in India’s demographic research, points out that as per the Sample Registration System conducted as part of the Census, the fertility rate or the number of children per adult female in Andhra Pradesh is 1.5, Karnataka 1.6, Kerala 1.5, Tamil Nadu 1.5 and Telangana 1.5. India’s national average for fertility rate is two.
What adds to the proportion of the elderly in the population in the South is the higher life expectancy rate in the region, compared to the national average of 68.2 years. As per the latest data available, collected for 2016-19 by the Registrar General of India, the life expectancy in Andhra was 69.1 years, Kerala 71.9 and Tamil Nadu 71.4 years. Only Karnataka’s life expectancy rate was marginally lower than the national average, at 67.9.
Goli adds that the problem is exacerbated by the fact that India has reduced its fertility rates pretty quickly. “The same amount of fertility transition – that is to come down from six children to 2.1 children per female adult – France took 285 years, England took 225 years, whereas India took just 45 years. The only country which took less time to reach this fertility transition is China, due to its very rigorous one-child policy,” Goli says, adding that this has left South Indian states “becoming older before getting richer”, unlike the European countries mentioned above, for example.
Goli says that in order to reap demographic dividend – that is a higher working age population and lower dependent population – the dependency ratio should be below 15. “In Andhra Pradesh alone, the dependency ratio is 18 (as per 2021 figures),” Goli says, pointing out that this will lead to more problems in the future due to little support for the older population in the country.
There is also the aspect of delimitation, which is due after the next Census. Currently, the constituency boundaries and numbers are decided as per population. If the birth rates stay steady, the number of Parliament seats in Andhra Pradesh is expected to fall from 25 to 20, in Karnataka, from 28 to 26, in Kerala from 20 to 14, in Tamil Nadu from 39 to 30, and in Telangana, from 17 to 15. Correspondingly, the North states given their higher populations will see their constituency numbers rise, giving them a larger voice in Parliament.
At the same time, experts say that trying to stop ageing by incentivising more children, as Naidu has proposed, is unlikely to work. “Andhra will only be one among the many governments which have attempted to incentivise birth. And it has worked nowhere in the world, including Europe and East Asia,” Irudaya Rajan of the International Institute of Migration and Development told The Indian Express.
Goli says one can also expect pushback from women “who have fought and are still fighting for their right to choose (child bearing)” in India’s largely patriarchal society.
