Indian women of all religious groups are now on average giving birth to fewer children than in the past. The total fertility rate, defined as the average number of children who would be born to a woman in her lifetime, has declined for all communities between the fourth National Family Health Survey (NFHS) conducted in 2015-16 and the fifth one in 2019-21, official data released earlier this week reveals.
The data also shows that the trend of groups with historically higher fertility rates witnessing a faster decline continues. Thus, Muslims have seen the sharpest drop between NFHS-4 and NFHS-5 by 9.9% from 2.62 to 2.36, though it remains higher than that of other communities. Since the beginning of the surveys in 1992-93, India’s TFR has droppedby over 40% from 3.4 to 2.0 and is now below what is considered “replacement level”, the level at which just enough children are being born to keep the population stable.
The National Family Health Survey Data shows that all major religious groups other than Muslims have now achieved a TFR of below replacement level, while the Muslim rate remains a little above it despite declining rapidly with each round of the survey. Over the five rounds of the NFHS so far, Muslim TFR has fallen by 46.5%, that for Hindus by 41.2% and for Christians and Sikhs by about a third. TFR data for Jains and Buddhists/neo-Buddhists was not compiled in NFHS-1 (1992-93).
Fertility data shows clearly that one of the primary determinants of fertility levels is the level of schooling of the mother. For those with no schooling in NFHS-5, the TFR is 2.82, for those with 12 years or more, it plummets to 1.78.
Among Muslim women aged 15-49 (considered the reproductive age), 31.4% had no schooling and only 44% had over seven years. For Hindus, the corresponding numbers were 27.6% and 53%, for Christians 16.8% and nearly 65%.
Also, the TFR for the same community varies widely across states. For instance, Hindus in Uttar Pradesh have a TFR of 2.29, but the same community in, say, Tamil Nadu, has a TFR of 1.75, well below replacement rate. Similarly, the Muslim TFR in UP is 2.66, but in Tamil Nadu it is 1.93, again below replacement rate.
