India is moving towards population stabilisation with the latest Census data showing a drop of 0.3 points in the Total Fertility Rate (TFR), the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime. The TFR has dropped by 0.3 points after remaining stagnant at 2.5 since 2001. The data also showed that the number of married men and women has gone up and survival rate for the under-20 population has gone up.
Census Data released by the Office of the Registrar-General on Tuesday shows that at the national level, the TFR has declined from 2.5 to 2.2 during 2001-11. According to the National Population Policy 2000, India should have reached replacement-level fertility rate of 2.1 by 2010 to attain population stabilisation at 145 crore by 2045. Population stabilisation is a stage when the size of the population remains unchanged.
However, India expects to reach population stabilisation of 2.1 TFR at 165 crore by 2040. Data with the Health Ministry shows that so far only 14 out of 35 States have achieved the TFR of 2.1. What is worrisome is that 45 per cent of India’s population is in the States that are yet to reach the targeted TFR and ten big States still have a higher TFR.
Bihar leads at (3.7), UP (3.5), MP (3.2), Rajasthan (3.1), Jharkhand (3),Chhattisgarh (2.8), Assam and Gujarat (2.5), Haryana and Odisha (2.3). The proportion of married women to total number of women is at 49.9 per cent in Census 2011 as against 47.7 per cent in Census 2001. The corresponding figure in case of males has increased to 46 per cent from 43.6 during the same period.
For women, the average marriage age has increased from 18.3 to 19.3 years and for men from 22.6 to 23.3 during Census 2001-11. The data shows a marginal increase in the proportion of divorced or separated population in both the sexes. Proportion of those widowed has increased from 6.4 per cent in Census 2001 to 7.4 per cent in Census 2011 for women and in males it has increased from 1.8 per cent to 2.0 per cent.
What remains a cause for worry for policy makers is that the sex ratio of children has declined for all age groups as compared to 2001. The decline is more pronounced in the younger age groups especially below 20. There has been a constant decline in child sex ratio (CSR) over the last four to five census’ and there is a particularly steep decline in the report of 2011, which registered a fall from 927 girls per 1,000 boys in the age group of 0-6 years to 918 per 1,000 boys. While the sex ratio has seen a decrease, the silver lining is that there is an improvement in survival ratio and there is an upward shift for all age groups during Census 2001-11.