Chandrababu Naidu and MK Stalin should know incentives, appeals won’t spur a baby boom
The declining fertility of India’s more prosperous South mirrors the downslide in wealthier countries that have had little success in reversing the trend.
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In 2023, Japan added 727,277 babies to its population.
Stack that number up against the population of Japan, which was about 124.5 million that year. That is, for every 1,000 Japanese residents, there were six babies born in 2023.
Compare that to India, where 16 babies are born for every 1,000 Indians – which is about the same as the world average. This means that Japan produces far fewer babies per capita than India, or indeed the world, does. In fact, 2023 saw the fewest Japanese babies born since that country started registering this data 125 years ago.
All this speaks of a slow-motion population crisis in Japan. Its population in 2023 was lower than it was in 2022, the 12th consecutive year-on-year population decline. This trend will continue.
The crisis was foreseen, many more than 12 years ago. There is even a well-known term that signalled it: the “1.57 shock” – 1.57 was Japan’s total fertility rate in 1989, the lowest it had been since World War II. Even during the 1980s, a long boom period for the Japanese economy, the country’s government recognised that 1.57 for what it was.
Total fertility rate, or TFR, is the number of babies the average woman will produce. A TFR of 2...
