India faces challenges in encouraging families to have more children despite financial incentives.
Southern States Push for Larger Families Amid Declining Fertility Rates
Southern states of India are proposing that families have more children if they wish to stand in local body elections.
- Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister has announced plans for “population management” in response to the state’s declining fertility rate, which currently stands at 1.6
- The government is considering new legislation to incentivize families to have more children, including a proposal that would restrict local body election eligibility to those with more than two children.
- Other Countries: Russia, Japan and South Korea are experiencing low fertility rate (TFR).
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- Replacement Rate: This is the level at which a population replaces itself from one generation to the next, generally defined as a rate of 2.1. If this rate is low, it indicates a decrease in population, which would impact a country’s economy.
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Does Government’s Intervention Bring a Change
China’s Example
- In the 1980s, China implemented a one-child policy, forcing couples to abort if they already had one child and imposing significant fines.
- This created a lasting psychological impact on society, leading many to prefer not having children.
- Even when the government relaxed the policy in 2016, allowing families to have up to three children and offering incentives, the changes had little effect on Chinese fertility rates.
Mother Heroine Award in Soviet Union
- In 1944, Joseph Stalin established the Mother Heroine award for women who gave birth to ten or more children. This was done in response to the significant population loss during World War II.
- Low Impact: However, Russia had a low Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 1.16 in 1999.
- New Incentives: Although the original awards were abolished in 1995, new incentives for motherhood were introduced in 2008.
- Low TFR: Despite a brief increase in fertility rates, Russia’s TFR subsequently declined to 1.4.
South Indian leaders, MK Stalin and Chandrababu Naidu are trying to follow a similar trend. But the above examples demonstrate that financial rewards do little to convince families to have more children if they do not see this in their interest.
What does the global fertility transition tell us about very low fertility?
Europe’s Fertility Fluctuations
- Over the past three decades, European fertility has fluctuated significantly, dropping to a “lowest-low” level of 1.3 or lower around 2000, rebounding to 1.8–1.9 by 2010, and then falling again to 1.4–1.6 by 2023.
- It’s tempting to attribute these shifts to declining family values when fertility drops or to effective government incentives when it rises, but these explanations may oversimplify a more complex interplay of social and economic factors.
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Tempo Effect
- The “tempo effect” in fertility refers to changes in birth rates due to shifts in the age at which people marry and have children, rather than an actual change in the number of children they ultimately have.
- As marriage and childbirth are delayed, birth rates can temporarily appear lower, as seen in Russia, where fertility rose from 1.16 in 1999 to 1.51 in 2008 when birth timing stabilised.
- In India, rising education levels and later marriages may similarly create a temporary dip in fertility.
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East Asia
Korea, Singapore, and even China are facing extremely low fertility rates.
- Reasons: Here, low fertility is not due to a lack of value placed on children, but rather the excessive emphasis on parenting and the responsibilities of mothers, leading to significant investments in a single, cherished child.
- Solution: Enhancing the quality of public education and reducing the time burden on parents for overseeing their children’s education may alleviate the pressure to choose between having more children and improving future opportunities for them.
Southern Europe and Japan
- As women became more economically active and sought to live as equals to men, patriarchal norms at home and rigid workplace structures created a dilemma for many women.
- Impact: Because of this double burden many women choose to forgo marriage and motherhood.
| Double burden is a term used to describe the workload of people who work to earn money, but who are also responsible for significant amounts of unpaid domestic labour. |
- Data from Japan: In Japan, for instance, the percentage of lifelong single individuals who were not married by age 50 increased from 2 percent for men and 3.3 percent for women in 1971 to 28 percent and 18 percent, respectively, by 2020.
Sweden
- Sweden has established itself as a family-friendly country, with a fertility rate of 1.9 from 2015 to 2020, showing some annual fluctuations.
- Reasons for 1.9 for TFR: Generous maternity and paternity leave, high-quality childcare, and social norms that promote shared work and parenting responsibilities have made it easier for couples to have children.
- This shows that improving public facilities is more important than using electoral contests as a tool to increase the Total Fertility Rate (TFR).
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Conclusion
The Indian governments should adopt family-friendly policies similar to those in Sweden to support families, because appeals to national interests or financial rewards do little to convince families to have more children.
October 26, 2024
