A costly policy error by China should be a cautionary tale for India
A working paper from the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) found that India's national Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has fallen to 1.9, below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman
Excluding two large northern states, the paper found the TFR falls further to around 1.6, a level comparable to Northern Europe (about 1.5) and the United States (about 1.6)
The paper recommends phasing out sterilisation-linked incentive payments and two-child eligibility norms for government benefits and local body candidacy, while retaining access to contraception, birth spacing, and reproductive healthcare on a voluntary basis
It cites China's decades-long experience of coercive birth restriction, followed by continued low fertility despite policy relaxation, as a cautionary example for India's continuing population-control-oriented schemes
National Population Policy, 2000 (NPP 2000)
The NPP 2000 was India's guiding population policy framework, setting a medium-term objective of bringing the Total Fertility Rate to replacement level by 2010 and a long-term objective of a stable population by 2045. It also created the National Commission on Population, chaired by the Prime Minister, to oversee implementation.
Key Details
- Immediate objective: address unmet contraception and reproductive/child healthcare needs
- Medium-term objective: achieve replacement-level TFR (2.1) by 2010
- Long-term objective: stabilise population by 2045 consistent with sustainable development
- India's TFR reached 2.0 in NFHS-5 (2019-21), already near replacement, and has since fallen further to 1.9 per more recent Sample Registration System (SRS) data — meaning the NPP 2000 fertility goal has been overtaken by demographic change, prompting calls to revisit the policy's rationale
The EAC-PM paper's core argument is that the premise of NPP 2000 — reducing fertility toward replacement level — has already been achieved and overshot, so incentive structures built around further reducing births are now outdated policy tools.
China's Family Planning Trajectory — A Comparative Case
China enforced a coercive one-child policy from 1980 to 2015, using financial incentives, mandatory contraception, and in many cases forced sterilisations and abortions to curb population growth. Facing rapid ageing, a shrinking workforce, and skewed sex ratios, China relaxed the policy to a two-child policy in 2016, a three-child policy in 2021, and removed birth limits shortly after — but fertility has remained near or below 1.2, and China's population has begun shrinking.
Key Details
- One-child policy: 1980-2015; two-child policy: from 1 January 2016; three-child policy: from May 2021; birth limits effectively removed within weeks of the 2021 change
- Despite relaxation, China's TFR has stayed around 1.0-1.2, illustrating the difficulty of reversing entrenched low-fertility behaviour once established (the "low-fertility trap")
- India overtook China as the world's most populous country in 2023, even as India's own fertility has since fallen close to China's historical trajectory
The EAC-PM paper explicitly frames China's inability to reverse its fertility decline as the cautionary tale for India: continuing to disincentivise births now, after fertility has already fallen below replacement, risks locking India into a similarly hard-to-reverse low-fertility trajectory.
Demographic Dividend and the Dependency Ratio
The demographic dividend is the growth potential arising when the working-age population (15-64 years) is proportionately larger than the dependent population (children and the elderly), lowering the dependency ratio. India's demographic window is estimated to span roughly five decades, with working-age population share projected to peak around the late 2030s to 2040 before beginning to decline.
Key Details
- Dependency ratio: ratio of the population aged 0-14 and 65+ (dependents) to the population aged 15-64 (working-age)
- India's demographic dividend window is estimated to run from around 2005-06 to 2055-56, with the working-age population's share expected to peak in the near term before declining
- A "low-fertility trap" occurs when very low fertility becomes self-reinforcing through social norms and economic structures (e.g., high child-rearing costs, delayed marriage), making it difficult to raise birth rates again once they fall too low
- Live births in India peaked at roughly 29 million in 2001 and have since declined to below 23 million per the EAC-PM working paper
The paper's warning is that continued policy emphasis on lowering fertility, even as India nears the peak and eventual decline of its working-age population share, could shorten the effective window of the demographic dividend by accelerating population ageing.
Two-Child Norm in Local Body Elections
Several states have used disqualification clauses in their Panchayati Raj laws — enabled under Article 243F, which allows state legislatures to prescribe additional disqualifications for panchayat membership — to bar candidates with more than two children from contesting local body elections.
Key Details
- States that have applied a two-child norm for panchayat/local body candidacy include Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Odisha, and (until a recent repeal) Telangana and Andhra Pradesh
- Article 243F permits state legislatures to add disqualification criteria for panchayat membership beyond those applicable to state legislature elections
- Courts, including the Supreme Court, have in specific cases upheld such disqualification clauses as a valid means of population-policy enforcement, while more recently questioning their continued utility given falling fertility
- The EAC-PM working paper's recommendation to withdraw two-child eligibility norms would require corresponding state-level legislative amendments (as Telangana has already done)
The two-child norm in panchayat law is a concrete example of the type of population-control-era policy tool the working paper argues should be phased out, since it continues to operate even after national fertility has already fallen below replacement.
- India's national Total Fertility Rate: 1.9 (per SRS data cited in the EAC-PM working paper), below the replacement level of 2.1
- TFR excluding two large northern states: approximately 1.6, comparable to Northern Europe (~1.5) and the United States (~1.6)
- NFHS-5 (2019-21) had recorded India's TFR at 2.0, down from 2.2 in NFHS-4 (2015-16)
- National Population Policy, 2000 targeted replacement-level TFR by 2010 and a stable population by 2045
- China's one-child policy: 1980-2015; two-child: 2016; three-child: 2021; birth limits removed thereafter; China's TFR has remained around 1.0-1.2
- India overtook China as the world's most populous country in 2023
- Live births in India: peaked at about 29 million (2001), now below 23 million