Not population ‘explosion’ but plunging fertility should worry India

As the world’s most populous nation, changes in the way India is growing deeply affect the world. Yet, these key shifts are not adequately documented or discussed, both within India and globally.

At Data For India, we track these changes closely, using high-quality Indian and global data sources: the United Nations World Population Prospects, 2024 Revision, for global data and population projections from India’s 2011 Census, the Sample Registration System and the National Family Health Survey for Indian data.

Through this three-part series, we attempt to pull together vital Indian data on demographic shifts, place them within the context of other socio-economic changes taking place in India, and set them against a global backdrop. With this, we identify new areas of research as well as directions for policy and discussion.

In Part I, we bring together the data to describe the current moment and the key recent data points that we argue have gone relatively unnoticed. In Part II, we examine data around falling birth rates and share research that suggests that India is both an outlier and a part of a global trend. In Part III, we look at the data on demographic differences between Indian states and how it feeds into current socio-economic and political tensions.

Over the...

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