Do we need Two Child Policy?

Recently a Bill to punish people with more than two children has been introduced in Rajya Sabha. But, is our population really growing at faster pace? Data says otherwise. Let us look at the data below in order to understand the population growth in India.

Below are the definitions which will be used:

Total Fertility Rate: The average number of live births a woman would have by age
50 if she were subject, throughout her life, to the age-specific fertility rates observed in a given year. Its calculation assumes that there is no mortality.[1]

Replacement Level: It is the total fertility rate—the average number of children born per woman—at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next, without migration. This rate is roughly 2.1 children per woman for most countries.[5]

In countries experiencing below-replacement fertility (lower than 2.1 children per women), population ageing accelerates and the fact that a generation does not produce enough children to replace itself eventually leads to outright reductions in population. Conversely, about two-thirds of the countries in Europe considered that their fertility levels were too low and more than three-quarters of these countries had policies to boost fertility [1]

Let’s look at the data, to justify whether the Total Fertility Rate can have impact on Population growth.

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)
Year	India	Kerala
1981	4.5	2.8
1991	3.6	1.8
1994	3.5	1.7
2001	3.2	1.9
2006 (NFHS-3)	2.7	1.9
2011	2.4	1.8

From the Table 1, Total Fertility Rate of Kerala has become less than Replacement level (i.e TFR<2.1) between 1981 and 1991. In meantime, from Fig 1 we can observe that the population of age group 0-14 years has been consistently decreasing from 1991. So one can conclude that if the TFR becomes less than Replacement level the population growth rate would be decreased.

India Context

The total fertility rate for India, measured as the number of children born to a woman, has fallen from 4.97 during 1975-80 to 2.2 for the current period of 2015-20[2]. It has been halved in 40 years.

Region	Total Fertility Rate
Bihar	3.3
Uttar Pradesh	2.7
Madhya Pradesh	2.4
Rajasthan	2.4
Uttarakhand	2.1
Karnataka	1.8
Kerala	1.6
Andhra Pradesh	1.8
Himachal Pradesh	1.9
Telangana	1.8
Delhi (NCT)	1.8
Tamil Nadu	1.7
West Bengal	1.8
India	2.2

India’s TFR is currently 2.2 and 24 states and UTs have already achieved TFR less than 2.1. In states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh literacy rate and Female to Male ratio is less, and crimes against women is more. If this law is implemented, it would only lead to Female infanticide in these states and will not have any impact on majority of states and UTs

It is crystal clear that Educating a girl child and Removing barriers to contraception [6] will not only reduce population but increases the quality of life for the population with better education and healthcare systems. Government should be focussing on these parameters.

Source:

1. https://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/natlinfo/indicators/methodology_sheets/demographics/total_fertility_rate.pdf
2. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/indias-fertility-rate-more-than-halves-over-40-years/article19124554.ece
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2965333/#B4
4. https://niti.gov.in/content/total-fertility-rate-tfr-birth-woman
5. https://www.wri.org/publication/achieving-replacement-level-fertility
6. Population Media Centre
7. NFHS 15-16