The findings of the 2019 Sample Registration Survey (SRS) — they are the only official source of demographic data in India apart from the Census — provide important insights into the ongoing demographic transformation in India. At least three of them, and associated policy implications, are significant.
One, fertility behaviour in rural and urban areas is increasingly converging. SRS data shows that rural fertility has been falling at a faster rate than urban fertility, a trend that will eventually bring
The findings of the 2019 Sample Registration Survey (SRS) — they are the only official source of demographic data in India apart from the Census — provide important insights into the ongoing demographic transformation in India. At least three of them, and associated policy implications, are significant.
One, fertility behaviour in rural and urban areas is increasingly converging. SRS data shows that rural fertility has been falling at a faster rate than urban fertility, a trend that will eventually bring the size of rural and urban households on par. Rural total fertility rate (TFR) is now the closest to its urban counterpart since 2006, the earliest period for which this data is available. TFR is the number of children a woman is expected to have in her reproductive age (15-49 years). Given India’s rapid urbanisation process, this will generate additional tailwinds for the urban population share in India. This, when read with trends of the increasing share of the working-age population (15-59 years) in India — the share of under-15 children has been falling for some time — underlines the need for ensuring adequate and healthy employment growth outside agriculture.
The second interesting aspect which SRS highlights is the importance of education in bringing down TFR among women. This number is three for illiterate women and just 1.6 for women who have finished college education. SRS data also shows that the average age of women at the time of marriage is increasing consistently. These two findings clearly point out that the empowerment of women through education is an effective way to ensure marriage at an appropriate age and stabilise population. When seen in this context, laws that seek to impose penalties on families with more than two children or plan to increase the minimum age of marriage for women, appear to be unnecessary.
Finally, SRS numbers offer fresh evidence that India is making an improvement on developmental indicators such as child and maternal welfare including mortality. While this is good news, and the pace of improvement has increased for some indicators, it is also a fact that India is still a laggard on many of these indicators. What SRS data also show is that there are examples within India — the southern states do much better on these counts — which can be successfully emulated to accelerate our progress on such indicators.
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