Small demographic window

New fertility estimates must define govt's priorities

Well-respected medical journal Lancet had produced a major study in 2021, known as the “Global Burden of Diseases”, which included careful assessments of current and future fertility globally, regionally, and for individual countries. A further comprehensive analysis of the underlying demographics of this study has now been released by the journal. Age-specific fertility rates were estimated from the survey data and censuses, and then aggregated across age cohorts to estimate the total fertility rate, or TFR, for a population. The headline news as far as India is concerned is that the TFR is expected to fall sharply by 2050. Indeed,