Education, wealth likely to explain fertility rates better than religion

Income levels and the number of years a person spends in school are inversely related to the size of families they decide to raise.

The total fertility rate, or the average number of children that women give birth to in their lifetime, is lower at higher levels of wealth and education.

Research also suggests that the role of religion may be more limited when compared to other factors.

The total fertility rate is 1.6 for the wealthiest 20 per cent of the people, according to data collected in the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) conducted in 2019-21. This rises to 2.6 per cent for the bottom 20 per cent.

Women with 12 years or more of schooling have 1.78 children on an average during their lifetime. The figure is 2.82 for those with no schooling (charts 1, 2).

There are also regional divides. Those living in rural areas tend to have more children than those in urban settings. The trend is not closely linked to religion (chart 3).

Districts with high Hindu fertility saw high Muslim fertility as well and those with low Hindu fertility saw low Muslim fertility. This is according to a 2018 study entitled ‘Hindu-Muslim Fertility Differentials in Major States of India: Indirect Estimation at District Level from Census 2011’ from author Saswata Ghosh of the Centre for Health Policy.

“Generally, it has been observed that, in areas with considerable decline in fertility, there is hardly any district that has a very high fertility level among Muslims,” it said.

Muslims tend to have among the lowest median years of schooling (4.3 years), compared to Hindus (4.9 years), Sikhs (7 years), Christians (7.2 years) and Jains (9.8 years).

A larger share of the Muslim population has the second lowest wealth quintile (19.6 per cent) after Hindus (20.5 per cent).

Muslim women are not just having fewer kids this decade but are also opting for longer birth spacing than before.

A Muslim woman (aged 40-49 years) on an average had 5.83 children in her lifetime, according to the first round of the NFHS-1, 1992-93.

In the latest NFHS survey (NFHS-5, 2019-21), the ratio was 3.6. The number of children per Hindu woman declined from 4.78 to 2.92 in the same period.

Meanwhile, the all-India average declined to 2.98 children per woman compared to 4.84 in NFHS-1 (chart 1).

Muslim women also practice longer birth spacing compared to Hindu women and Indian women on an average.

The median time between consecutive pregnancies was 34 months for Muslim women compared to 32 months for Hindu women.

An Indian woman had a median birth interval of 33 months.

Muslim women had comparatively shorter birth intervals in 2005-06 (chart 2).

A World Health Organization (WHO) technical consultation on birth spacing in 2005 had recommended birth spacing of at least 2-3 years to reduce infant and child mortality and improve maternal health.