Recently population Control bill has been in the light in India. Two states Assam and Uttar Pradesh have proposed Population Stabilization Bill. Also, many other states; Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Odisha are following two-child norm for the local body elections (Two-child policy in Indian states, 2019). Indian prime minister Narendra Modi during his Independence Day speech in 2019, talked about the population explosion. He highlighted in his speech that population explosion in the country will create problems in the coming year and those who have small families are contributing to the development of the country and it is a form of patriotism (Times, 2020). The government who are proposing population bill to their states are giving the justification given by Malthusian, of exponential population growth rate and arithmetic food production growth (Hollander, 1997), but aren’t looking to the justification of Julian Simon who talked about ultimate resources (Simon, 1985). Also, Amartya Sen, one of the great Indian economists, talked about population well-being and stated that cooperation can provide something that coercion can’t provide (Sen, 1997).
The Uttar Pradesh government has talked about certain measures through this law. If you have one or two children you are eligible to certain benefits in terms of increment in job promotions, monetary benefits, health coverage benefits and many more perks. But if you have more than two children, the penalties are there like debarring people from government jobs, limiting their public distribution ration cards to 4 people. Also, debarring them from local level elections which is being followed by other states too. The government is saying that these targets will stabilize the population of UP and will make them reach the sustainable development goals and even allow them to use an equitable distribution of resources, justifying bringing the population control bill.
India has seen population growth in the past; the population of India exploded between 1930 to 1980. The Population decadal growth raised from 11% in the 1931 census to around 25% in the 1981 census. Since 1981 the population growth has seen declining trends and in the 2011 census, India had a 17.1% decadal growth rate. Table 1 justifies that even more; the UP trend has been a little different in terms of population growth rate it has started showing a declining trend in the last decade which is a positive sign towards population stabilization. The Lancet study further projected that India’s population is going to peak around 2048 to 160 crores and thereafter it will see a decline of 32% and reach around 109 crores around 2100 (Vollset, 2020).
Table 1: Trends in Population Growth (1961-2011)
| Year | Population Growth Rate (in %) | |
| India | Uttar Pradesh | |
| 2011 | 17.64 | 20.23 |
| 2001 | 21.54 | 25.80 |
| 1991 | 23.87 | 25.61 |
| 1981 | 24.66 | 25.39 |
| 1971 | 24.80 | 19.54 |
| 1961 | 21.64 | 16.38 |
[Source: Census of India (Census, 2011)]
The Total Fertility Rate at the national level is 2.2 births per woman according to NFHS- 4, 2015-16 (NFHS, 2015-16); Also the TFR is projected to decline to 1.24 by 2020 (Vollset, 2020). It is evident that just like India, the Indian states will also encounter a decline in the total fertility rate several states have already a TFR lower than the national average. Uttar Pradesh too has seen a decline in TFR from 4.8 children per woman in 1992 to 2.7 children per woman in 2016 (Table: 2). This is in spite of a fall in Child Mortality Rate from 83 in 2000 to 43 in 2016 (Health and Family Welfare Department, U.P., 2021).
Table 2: Trend in Total fertility rate (1992-2016)
| Year | Total Fertility Rate (Births per woman) | |
| India | Uttar Pradesh | |
| 2015-16 (NFHS:4) | 2.2 | 2.7 |
| 2005-06 (NFHS:3) | 2.7 | 3.8 |
| 1998-99 (NFHS:2) | 2.9 | 3.99 |
| 1992-93 (NFHS:1) | 3.4 | 4.82 |
[Source: National Family Health Survey]
The present contraceptive use of any method for India is 53.5%. Studies suggest that the sex composition of children is associated with contraceptive use in India (Rajan, 2018) (Dey, 2021). Couples with four or more children are more likely to use modern contraceptives when they have at least one son and one daughter and are very less likely to use contraceptives when they have all daughters and no sons than couples who have no daughters (Dey, 2021). Also, for states like UP, the contraceptive uses of any method have been below the national average and the unmet needs are quite high i.e. around 18% (Table 4). In such cases, the state should focus on providing a basket of choices to the family.
Table 3: Contraceptive Use Pattern (1992-2016)
| Year | Contraceptive use- Any Method (In %) | |
| India | Uttar Pradesh | |
| 2015-16 (NFHS:4) | 53.5 | 45.5 |
| 2005-06 (NFHS:3) | 56.3 | 43.6 |
| 1998-99 (NFHS:2) | 48.2 | 27 |
| 1992-93 (NFHS:1) | 40.7 | N.A. |
[Source: National Family Health Survey]
Table 4: Total Unmet need for Family Planning (1992-2016)
| Year | Unmet need for family planning (In %) | |
| India | Uttar Pradesh | |
| 2015-16 (NFHS:4) | 12.9 | 18.1 |
| 2005-06 (NFHS:3) | 12.8 | 23.1 |
| 1998-99 (NFHS:2) | 15.8 | 25.4 |
| 1992-93 (NFHS:1) | 19.5 | N.A. |
[Source: National Family Health Survey]
We also see that there is a reduction in the TFR for both the national level and UP with the years of schooling. Also, states like Kerala and Punjab with a TFR of 1.6 which is below replacement level indicate the same. From Table 5 it’s clear, the woman with no schooling has a high TFR of 3.07 for India and 3.5 for UP and as the level has raised the TFR has decreased up to 1.71 for India and 1.9 for UP for more than 12 more years of schooling. Studies have also indicated the same in the case of UP. Higher fertility was concentrated in districts with a low level of woman schooling, predominantly in the north-central UP (Halli, 2019).
Table 5: Fertility and Education (2015-16)
| Years of Schooling | Total Fertility Rate (Children per woman) | |
| India | Uttar Pradesh | |
| No schooling | 3.07 | 3.5 |
| < 5 years of schooling | 2.43 | 3.2 |
| 5-9 years complete | 2.3 | 2.8 |
| 10-11 years complete | 1.99 | 2.4 |
| 12 or more years complete | 1.71 | 1.9 |
Conclusion
In India the missing female at births has increased from 35 lakhs in 1987-96 to 55 lakhs in 2007-16 (Saikia, 2021), it indicates that bringing any such population bill will make the case more worse for the states as well as the country where sex-selective abortion is still practiced. Whereas there has been an overall improvement in Sex Ratio from 898 women per 1000 men in 2001 to 912 in 2011, the Child Sex Ratio (0-6 years) has seen a fall from 916 to 902 in the same period in UP (Health and Family Welfare Department, U.P., 2021). This should be a cause of concern as any coercive measure on number of children is likely to worsen this ratio against girls. Given, UP’s large population and geography, family planning and fertility should be targeted and accounted with the different social factors which are affecting them. Bringing educational reforms and giving choices for family planning would work more appropriately at the state level. This would lead to an overall improvement in the fertility outcome of the state as well at the National level.
References
- Census. (2011). Census of India. Retrieved from https://censusindia.gov.in/
- Dey, A. K. (2021). How does the sex composition of children affect men’s higher ideal family size preference relative to women and contraceptive use patterns among couples? A cross-sectional analysis of dyadic couple’s data in India. . SSM-population health, , 100835.
- Halli, S. S. (2019). Fertility and family planning in Uttar Pradesh, India: major progress and persistent gaps. . Reproductive health, , 16(1), 1-12.
- Health and Family Welfare Department, U.P. (2021). Uttar Pradesh Population Policy, 2021-30.
- Hollander, S. (1997). The Economics of Thomas Robert Malthus (Vol. 4). University of Toronto Press.
- NFHS. (2015-16). India Fact Sheet. Retrieved from IIPS: http://rchiips.org/nfhs/pdf/NFHS4/India.pdf
- Rajan, S. N. (2018). Sex composition and its impact on future childbearing: A longitudinal study from urban Uttar Pradesh. Reproductive health, 15(1), 1-9.
- Saikia, N. M. ( 2021). Trends in missing females at birth in India from 1981 to 2016: analyses of 2· 1 million birth histories in nationally representative surveys. . The Lancet Global Health,, 9.
- Sen, A. (1997). Population policy: authoritarianism versus cooperation. . Journal of Population Economics, , 10(1), 3-22.
- Simon, J. L. (1985). The ultimate resource.
- Times, H. (2020). Population control a form of patriotism: PM Modi. Retrieved from Hindustan Times: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/73rd-independence-day-2019-population-control-a-form-of-patriotism-pm-modi/story-P8tzbY4nqd5FA9ROs4qrhP.html
- Two-child policy in Indian states. (2019, October 23). Retrieved from The Indian Express: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/two-child-policy-in-indian-states-6082879/
- Vollset, S. E. (2020). Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study. The Lancet, 396(10258), 1285-1306.
[Shirya Bajaj has an M.Phil. in Population Studies from International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai. Sandeep Pandey is Vice President, Socialist Party (India).]
