Viswanathan K's Thoughts

The stereotype image on population growth is that only the southern states rates are declining while the rest of India is closer to the UP-Bihar end of the spectrum. Not true at all. While UP-Bihar are indeed the worst, most Indian states have low birth rates, not just the southern states. So much so that, as Raghu S Jaitley says : “We have gone from a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 3 to 2 in under 12 years; possibly the fastest such transition in the past century. Most of the developed economies of today took more than half a century for a similar drop.”   A generation back, we were told our population was one of the big reasons why India was poor, doing badly economically. So such a reduction in TFR must be a good thing, right? Well: “We have reached a TFR of under 2 now at a per capita of about US$3000, while such levels were reached by other economies at more than US$15,000.” Two major exceptions to that were Japan and China. Both overcame a low TFR before they becam...

If a country wants to keep its population unchanged, each couple should have 2.1 kids on average. The “extra” 0.1 is to adjust for the odd kid who dies early.   In Numbers Don’t Lie , Vaclav Slim points out that a radical change in the demographics of a country (increase or decrease) has historically “had enormous demographic, economic, and strategic implications”. As Europe’s share of global population fell from 18% in 1900 to 9.5% in 2020, so has its global significance. Asia, in the same period, has moved in the opposite direction on both fronts. From now to 2070, by this metric, Africa’s share should increase.   No country has ever managed to achieve exactly (or very close to) the replacement rate of 2.1. Japan, (in)famously dipped well below that number. But how far below 2.1 can a country go and still “recover”? Historical data suggests that below 1.5, such reversals are very unlikely. Spain, Italy, and Romania are at 1.3; Japan, Ukraine, Greece, and Croatia are...