Indians getting married at higher age, fertility down: census

Age-specific fertility rate for women in the age group of 15-49 declined in 2011 as compared to 2001

Indians are now getting married at a higher age than a decade ago and a decline in fertility has also been observed, the 2011 Census released here on Tuesday said.

It was observed that the female mean age at marriage had increased from 18.3 to 19.3 years, whereas the increase among males was from 22.6 to 23.3 years during Census 2001-11.

The proportion of divorced and separated had marginally increased in the case of both the sexes, the report said.

From the data released on marital status, it was observed that at the national level, the proportion of married women to total number of women was reported to be 49.9 per cent in Census 2011, against 47.7 per cent in Census 2001. In case of males, it was 46.0 per cent in Census 2011, against 43.6 per cent in Census 2001.

On fertility, it was observed that the number of children born in 2011 had declined for all age groups as compared to 2001.

However, the decline was more in younger age groups, especially below 20, the report by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India said.

There was an improvement in survival ratio and there was an upward shift for all age groups during Census 2001-11. The age-specific fertility rate at the national level for women in the age group of 15-49 in five-year age groups declined in 2011 as compared to 2001. The total fertility rate at the national level had declined from 2.5 to 2.2 during 2001-11.

The proportion of widowed increased from 6.4 per cent in Census 2001 to 7.4 per cent in Census 2011 for females and for males, it had increased from 1.8 per cent to 2.0 per cent.