Discussions of population devolve into debates about childbearing and ultimately centre on women’s bodies. Modern global discourse emphasises a return to traditional ways of life
Visions of population explosion or implosion seem to provoke strong passions. Three centuries ago, Malthus argued that population growth would outpace the food supply, leading to famine and disease. Today, the focus seems to have shifted to concerns about underpopulation in India and globally. Elon Musk even claims that population collapse poses a much greater risk than global warming.
This is a strange turnaround. In the 1800s, the world population was a billion, and life expectancy was less than 30 years. Despite the population growing to over 8 billion, Malthus’s doomsday predictions have not materialised, and life expectancy now exceeds 70. Are fears of a shrinking workforce equally flimsy? Just as improvements in agriculture and the Green Revolution have continued to feed the world, it seems highly likely that AI and other technological advances will cope with a smaller workforce.
However, the harm to the social fabric from these overblown claims may be incalculable. Discussions of population devolve into debates about childbearing and ultimately centre on women’s bodies. Malthus advocated chastity for women to reduce fertility. Modern global discourse emphasises a return to traditional ways of life, controlling access to contraception, and sometimes criminalises abortion. The Indian discourse echoes the global disconnect, with some unique twists, leaving fear and dissension in its wake. Hence, it is important to address some of these fears directly.
First, is India on the verge of depopulation, as a recent article suggests? If we accept the United Nations projections using their medium variant, the Indian population will grow to 1.7 billion and then decline by the end of the 21st century, returning to the present level of about 1.4 billion. However, projections from the Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics (IHME) suggest it will dip below 1 billion. Unfortunately, IHME projections assume that future college graduates will follow the same path to low fertility as current graduates and that increasing education will further reduce fertility. But between 2015-16 and 2019-21, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) for women with 12 more years of education held steady at 1.7, while that for women with lower levels of education dropped. A narrowing gap between educated and less-educated women has been observed in many countries, undermining confidence in the IHME methodology.
Second, with an ageing population, will India face a worker shortage? Projections from the Population Foundation of India indicate that the share of the population aged 60 and older will rise from 11 per cent to 28 per cent between 2021 and 2051. However, this will be offset by a decline in the child population, and the working-age population will decline only slightly from 66 per cent to 64 per cent. With an AI-led increase in productivity and the potential to recruit women workers who are largely outside the formal labour force, even this slight decline should pose no problem.
Third, is the population in north India growing faster than that in south India, and if so, will it diminish the power of southern states in the Indian Union? South India experienced a fertility decline earlier than the north. For example, in 1971, Tamil Nadu accounted for 7.5 per cent of India’s population; by 2011, it had dropped to 6 per cent, and it is likely to have declined further by 2026. Consequently, if electoral seat allocation is based on population share in 2026 rather than 1971, the southern states will lose. But it is also important to remember that higher economic growth, driven by low population growth and increased investment in children, has increased productivity in states like Tamil Nadu. Sanjeev Sanyal estimates that Tamil Nadu’s share of GDP grew from 7.1 per cent in the 1990s to 8.9 per cent in 2023-24. Balancing economic and demographic power and ensuring adequate representation of geographic minorities is a challenge that will need to be addressed in the coming years.
Fourth, is the Muslim population in India likely to overtake the Hindu population? Muslim fertility is slightly higher than Hindu fertility, but across the three waves of the National Family Health Survey between 2005 and 2021, both communities have seen a similar decline in TFR of about 0.7, leaving the Hindu-Muslim fertility gap unchanged. Rudimentary calculations suggest that even after 50 years, this fertility differential, if unchanged, would result in a small increase in the share of the Muslim population in India from about 15 per cent to 19 per cent. It seems more likely that Muslim fertility will follow a path similar to that of Hindus, and the increase will be smaller.
The above discussion suggests the need for a cautious, balanced approach to adapting to population change and for avoiding aggressive rhetoric that does more harm than good. Consider the discourse on declining fertility, which has led to political calls for a return to traditional values and for deprioritising contraception and child bonuses.
India stands in stark contrast to countries like Japan. Faced with an inflexible gender culture and work-family constraints, nearly 30 per cent of Japanese women remain unmarried into their 30s. In contrast, marriage and family remain the linchpin of Indian family life. The NFHS shows that 97 per cent of women are married by age 30. Yet the very importance of family also leads to smaller families. My research with Alaka Basu shows that parents often choose to have a single child so they can invest more in that child’s education. Reducing educational costs, improving the quality of education, and easing the burden on parents to supervise homework may do more to increase fertility than a call for higher fertility.
The writer is professor, University of Maryland, and NCAER. Views are personal
