Demography India Vol. 28, Issue 1, (1999)

From the Chief Editor’s Desk

The Indian Mode of Fertility Transition

DURING the past two decades, different countries have realised their fertility transition to replacement levels orfurther lower through practice of different methods of contraception. China and Korea had achieved this largelythrough IUD, Thailand and Malaysia through oral pills and most of the decline in fertility in the world has been dueto use of oral pills. India is different from the rest of the world in that, it is realizing its fertility transition throughlarge scale acceptance of sterilisation, especially by women.

This may sound as a drastic or even draconian mode of fertility transition but married couples in India, by andlarge, do not want to mess around with spacing methods but choose to have the number of children they desire asthey come along under natural conditions without any deliberate spacing pattern as such and go in for the limitationmethod. Use of spacing method is yet to take any firm root in the Indian psyche.

For instance, in Andhra Pradesh, the Total Fertility Rate has declined from 4.6 in 1975 to 3.7 in 1985 and to 2.6in 1995; an average decline of one birth per woman in ten years. Surprisingly, even in the rural areas, the pace ofdecline has been equally high, from 4.8 to 3.8 to 2.8 during the same period. Recent National Family Health Survey(II) survey data has estimated the TFR of the state during 1996-98 centred in 1997, at 2.25 and if the recent trendscontinue, the State is expected to have achieved the replacement level of fertility this year, 1999. Currently, 60.4 percent of the eligible couples use a modern method of contraception, with 52.7 per cent adodpting female sterilizationand 4.3 per cent male sterilization. Thus, over 84 per cent of the contraceptive protection in the State is throughfemale sterilization.

The recently available preliminary reports of the NFHS-II conducted during 1998-99 in, Gujarat and Sikkim inaddition to Andhra Pradesh and also the unpublished data available from the other high fertility state of UttarPradesh reveal that fertility levels in India have declined fast during the past 6 to 7 years, faster than expected, bothin rural and urban areas, and we may be achieving replacement levels of fertility sooner than what we hadanticipated even 3 years back.

Even in Gujarat, which had traditionally a larger acceptance of spacing methods, out of a total of 60.5 per centcontraceptive protection rate, 43.0 percentage points were by female sterilization and 2.3 percentage points were bymale sterilization. Female sterilizations thus accounted for 71 per cent of the total protection by any modern method of contraception. TheTotal Fertility Rate (TFR) of women in the age group 15 to 44 in the State has declined from 2.97 during 1990-92 to2.70 during 1996-98, a decline of 0.27 points in six years. If this trend continues in the future, the replacement levelof fertility (TFR of 2.1) will be reached by 2012 rather than by 2014 as assumed by the Registrar General in hisprojections three years back.

In Uttar Pradesh, the preliminary estimates of Total Fertility Rate by NFHS-II during 1996-98 was 4.0 and ifthis is accepted as a reliable figure and related with TFR of 4.8 estimated for 1990-92 by NFHS-I, there has been asignificant decline in fertility during the past six years. If we extrapolate these trends in the future, Uttar Pradesh willbe achieving the replacement level of fertility of TFR of 2.1 by the year 2011 and not by 2100, as was assumed byRegistrar General three years back! Of course, NFHS estimates of fertility for Uttar Pradesh are significantly lowerthan SRS estimates and need validation.

This story is repeated State after State and India may in all likelihood, achieve her replacement level of fertilitymuch sooner than what was anticipated even a few years back and that too by widespread acceptance of femalesterilization. Recent evidences indicated that fertility may be declining more rapidly and can go well belowreplacement level as it is experienced in Kerala, which is currently having a TFR of 1.7. In the populationprojections by the Registrar General published in 1996, it was projected that the replacement level of fertility at thenational level would be achieved only by the year 2026.On the whole, it appears that women of India, both in rural and urban areas, want a small family andsterilization is the preferred choice of fertility regulation.

K Srinivasan
Chief Editor, Demography India