The angst might seem premature in the world’s most populous nation of 1.4 billion people. Yet, around the world from South Korea, which has the world’s lowest fertility rate at 0.78, to the European Union, where the number of births in the 27 member states has fallen to its lowest since comparable data was first collected in 1961, alarm bells are ringing.
Women are simply not having enough children.
About a year ago, I spoke to women who had chosen to be what they called “child-free”. Some told me the village it takes to raise a child is shrinking. So, who raises the baby? All over the world but much more so in India, the division of responsibilities between parents is lop-sided, leading to what economists call a “motherhood penalty”. It’s a penalty with very real consequences as a 2017 World Bank paper found out: Labour force participation for Indian women with even one child was at 16.1% significantly lower than the 23.6% for women with no children.
Other women spoke about the cost of living and the precarity with jobs. With rising standards and aspirations, even raising one child was a serious consideration.
And still others lamented about the state of politics, global affairs and, even, climate change. Was it fair to bring a child into such a world, they wondered.
Urban women, says Amrita Nandy, author of Motherhood and Choice, women, are typically choosing to have fewer children or none at all. “These women are discovering non-traditional ideas of fulfilment. Children and family are not all that they derive happiness from.” Moreover, she continues, “There are no safe and affordable support structures in the urbanscape.” A child requires a financial investment that is “immense and rising, and works as a deterrent.”
A positive correlation exists between lower fertility and education, economic and political participation, and better health outcomes. Women with fewer kids are healthier, more likely to be better educated and employed, and have more time to engage in political life. Those who’ve witnessed the generational struggle, seen their grandmothers and mothers fight for education, the right to work, to have a greater say in households, might not want to give up their hard-earned freedoms. And for men to now suggest a reversal of all that we’ve regarded as demographic gains simply to keep up with states that have failed is ridiculous.
We’re nearly at 2025 but women’s fertility continues to be a preserve of patriarchy with male politicians determining policies to either curb it or spur it. After a regressive one-child policy, China’s Xi Jinping is pushing the message for more women to get married and have babies. Childbirth is a national priority in other countries too using a variety of bait from tax breaks (France) to subsidized housing deposits (Singapore).
I get the anxiety about dwindling numbers and economic impact. But that cross cannot be borne by women alone. There is also the niggling suspicion that advice to have more children stems from an impulse to control the bodies of women. If the concern was deeply felt, rather than dictating to women how many kids they ought to have, a more fruitful conversation would have been on how the state plans to adapt to changing demographics—raising the retirement age for instance, allocating greater resources like creches that help women who choose to be mothers, changing policy.
A good place to start? Equal paternity leave.
This article was originally published on 06 Dec 2024 by the Hindustan Times