We Need More Skills And High Growth, Not More Births

In recent weeks there have been repeated calls by prominent public figures to increase birth rates in India. Chandra Babu Naidu and MK Stalin, chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, respectively, are urging families to have more children and are even providing state incentives for more childbirths. These calls stem from the fears that fertility rates (the average number of children a woman bears during her reproductive life) have declined below the replacement level of 2.1 in their states, and, over time, the working-age population may shrink, affecting economic growth. Another argument advanced is that a lower share of population in their respective states would mean lower representation in the national legislature and a lower level of Union devolution of resources. These calls to increase birth rates, and therefore population, have serious and lasting consequences and deserve to be examined carefully.

When I was a medical student 50 years ago, many young people of my generation were deeply worried about unchecked population growth. According to the 1971 census, India’s population was 548 million. Our fears proved to be right. In just 54 years we reached about 1460 million, a 2.7-fold increase! During the same period, global population increased from 3.69 billion (1970) to 8.2 billion (2024), an increase of 2.2 times. In fact, the twentieth century saw unprecedented population growth globally. The world population, which stood at 1.6 billion in 1900, increased to 6.17 billion by 2000, nearly a four-fold increase in a century. And since 2000, we added another two billion to the human population in just 24 years!

A quick review of the demographic trends from the prehistoric period will give us some perspective on population explosion. By 1900, we reached 1.60 billion. The twentieth century witnessed spectacular advances in healthcare, prolonging lives and preventing infant mortality, but birth rates were still very high. As a result, the population exploded four times in a century, an increase never witnessed before and will never be repeated in the future. From a demographic point of view, the twentieth century was unique.

Clearly, such an exponential rise of population in India or across the globe is unsustainable. With increasing global warming and climate change, it will be foolish to assume that the extraordinary growth and prosperity the world witnessed for 75 years will continue at the same pace. Humanity now dominates the planet. Of all the mammalian biomass on the planet, humans and their livestock account for an astonishing 96%; the rest of the wild mammals on land and in the oceans account for only 4% of the biomass! We are already facing a potential ecological Armageddon.

India has done well over the past 40 years in family planning and reducing birth rates and fertility rates voluntarily. Our fertility rate, which stood at a high 5.2 in 1971, has now fallen to 1.94 across the country. Every state and every demographic group across caste, religion, language and ethnicity is witnessing declining fertility rates. Only Bihar, UP and Jharkhand have fertility rates above 2.1, and even in these states we are going to reach a level of 2.1 within the next few years. Families all over the world are voluntarily limiting the number of children they would like to have. Enhanced freedom for women, higher literacy, rising prosperity, better healthcare, greater aspirations and ecological concerns have resulted in declining fertility levels. We should celebrate this success. It is utterly illogical and potentially catastrophic to want to multiply the human population disregarding resource constraints and ecological concerns. If we grow as rapidly in the 21st century as we did in the last one, the human population will reach an unbelievable, unsustainable and catastrophic 20 billion. Even now, we will probably reach about 10.4 billion, an incredibly high level stretching global resources very thin, depleting nature, and causing ecological devastation. India and humanity are on the verge of spectacular success in demography. Let us not extract defeat from the jaws of victory.

True, if fertility levels decline too much, there may be fewer workers and many dependents in the future. But India is not there, not by a long shot. In no state have we been able to give quality education to our children. Even now, the future of 80% of children is determined by the circumstances of their birth and not by their innate talent and hard work. Our great challenge is to harness the human potential that is wasted. It is utterly illogical and counterproductive to incentivise more child births when the state has completely failed to give quality education and impart skills. Even the few who are skilled are not finding enough suitable jobs. Our governance failures and political challenges are stunting economic growth, and job creation is not keeping pace with the demand. And the response of parties to employ more people in government, with exorbitant wages and privileges at the cost of tax-payers, will only perpetuate poverty and bankrupt the state. Against this backdrop, asking for more children is suicidal economically and destructive environmentally. If there are labour shortages, the answer lies in internal migration and enhancing productivity. Too few people migrate in India to meet labour demand. We must create conditions for easy migration and growth of small towns as hubs of economic growth. We need education, skills, productivity, infrastructure, investment and job creation, not more people and bad governance.

The author is the founder of Lok Satta movement and Foundation for Democratic Reforms. Email: [email protected] / Twitter@jp_loksatta