Fertility transition in India: 1985-2003

Fertility in India continues to remain well above the replacement level although it is decreasing. There are many countries in the world, notably Bangladesh and China, where fertility has reduced at a faster rate than in India despite the fact that India was the first country in the world to adopt an official policy towards population stabilization and launch the official National Family Planning Programme, now known as National Family Welfare Programme, which was directed specifically to fertility reduction through birth limitation as far back as 1952.

Using the data available through the Sample Registration System, this paper employs a decomposition methodology to analyse the transition in fertility in India and in 15 of major states for the period 1985 through 2003. The analysis reveals that while the population fertility, measured in terms of the crude birth rate, declined monotonically in the country and in all states throughout the period 1985- 2003, the decrease in individual fertility, measured in terms of the annual average marital fertility rate was stalled and in most of the states in the post 1995-97 period when the target free approach or the community needs assessment approach was introduced for the implementation of the National Family Welfare Programme.

The paper concludes by observing that while the prevalence of contraception, the most important determinant of fertility within the institution of marriage, increased under the target free regime, nearly all the increase was confined to an increase in the prevalence of modern spacing and traditional methods of contraception. However, because of the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the modern spacing and traditional methods of contraception, increase in the contraceptive prevalence rate appears to have little impact on the fertility of married women.