Population slowdown is triumph of India’s people
- Recently, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare released the findings of the fifth National Family Health Survey (NFHS), documenting government data on health and family welfare issues.
- As per the data, India’s population had “stabilised” and some even claimed that it had begun “declining”.
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According to the findings, India’s total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman in the country over her lifetime — has slipped to 2.0. According to the United Nations, if women have on an average 2.1 children each over a sustained period of time, the population neither grows nor declines and thus stabilises.
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This means that for India’s population to stabilise or decline, it would have to maintain a TFR equal to or less than 2.1 for a sustained period of decades.
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Regardless, this drop in India’s TFR, which stood at almost 6 in the 1950s, to its current levels is a significant feat.
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The credit for this achievement must go to the people of India, along with successive governments, especially the bureaucracy. * This drop is a sign of changing aspirations, especially among women, who are seeing the wisdom of having fewer children."