On May 31, Garima will celebrate her seventh wedding anniversary with her childhood sweetheart, Siddharth. For years, both their parents and in-laws urged them to have children and expand their family. But over time, even their families have stopped trying to convince the couple.
Garima and Siddharth, both senior managers in Gurugram-based multinational companies, say their demanding work schedules leave them with little time for themselves, let alone the emotional and financial bandwidth required to raise a child. They have also seen many colleagues struggle to balance careers with parenting responsibilities.
According to them, even raising one child today involves immense challenges and long-term commitments — something they are not yet prepared for, especially at a time when the cost of living has soared. At present, their priority is paying instalments for the flat they recently purchased in an elite housing society. “Only after we achieve financial stability will we think of having a child,” says Garima, who will turn 35 in November.
Their story reflects the reality faced by many urban working couples, a trend clearly mirrored in India’s declining fertility rates. According to latest figures from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), India’s total fertility rate (TFR) has fallen to 1.9, slipping below the replacement level of 2.1. The TFR measures the average number of children per woman, while replacement level refers to the number of babies at which a population replaces itself from one generation to the next. When the TFR remains below the replacement level, the population’s age structure shifts. Once the dependent ageing population outnumbers the young workforce, it puts immense pressure on the country’s healthcare, social security and economic output.
As per the Economic Survey 2025-26, among the 31 states and UTs where the TFR has fallen below replacement levels are Sikkim at 1.1, Goa 1.3, Punjab 1.6, Chandigarh 1.4, J&K 1.4, Delhi 1.6, Himachal Pradesh 1.7 and Haryana 1.9.
Responding to Andhra Pradesh’s falling TFR, which stands at 1.7, and concerns over an ageing workforce, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu recently announced in the state Assembly a new Population Management Policy — the first-of-its-kind in the country — aimed at shifting the state’s focus from family planning to population growth. “If the TFR continues to decline rapidly, the number of working-age people could reduce significantly, potentially slowing the state’s economic growth,” he said.
Andhra Pradesh has been at the forefront of population control — even using coercive measures such as target-driven sterilisation and policies barring citizens with more than two children from contesting local panchayat elections. To boost the state’s falling fertility rate, the draft policy proposes financial incentives of Rs 30,000 for a third child and Rs 40,000 for a fourth child, besides enhanced parental leave and maternal health benefits.
“Globally, none of the countries that have implemented such incentives have achieved much success. Take South Korea, which has the lowest TFR in the world at 0.75. Despite government incentives and progressive policies, the country has managed to see only a marginal rebound of 0.1,” says Dr Srinivas Goli, associate professor in demography at the International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai. While the document presented by the Andhra Pradesh CM will help highlight falling fertility levels in the state as well as the country, the incentives offered may only widen the inequality gap, he says, adding, “Only the poor will get attracted to such offers.”
Similar pro-natalist incentives such as child support and long paid maternity leave have not helped reverse shrinking fertility rates in the West either, says Dr PM Kulkarni, former professor of Population Studies at the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. “In the 1950s, women who produced more children were called heroines of the Soviet Union and were bestowed with medals,” he says.
Russia’s TFR stands at 1.37, while the TFR across the European Union is at a record low of 1.34 live births per woman.
Fertility cannot be addressed through financial incentives alone, says Poonam Muttreja, executive director at Population Foundation of India. “Countries that have done relatively better, particularly some Nordic countries, are those that invested in long-term structural support such as affordable childcare, paid parental leave, public healthcare, workplace flexibility and more gender-equal caregiving norms.”
The larger concern, says Muttreja, who co-conceived the popular transmedia initiative Main Kuchh Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon, is that fertility debates can quickly shift pressure onto women. Women in India already face immense social expectations around marriage and childbearing, and pro-natalist messaging can intensify pressure to conceive, continue pregnancies, or prioritise motherhood over education and employment, she says.
“The focus should be on strengthening childcare systems, reproductive healthcare, maternal health, workplace flexibility and greater participation of men in caregiving, rather than treating women as instruments of population policy,” adds Muttreja.
According to Prof KS James, visiting professor at Princeton University. “We are yet to develop good institutional work culture and social practices for childcare, especially when women enter the workforce. There’s a very unfair division of care at home. Working women are expected to take care of the family while the same rule doesn’t apply to men, thus delaying child bearing.”
According to the Time Use Survey, 2024, women in India spend nearly five times more time on unpaid domestic and caregiving work compared to men. The survey, conducted by the National Statistics Office, found that 41 per cent of females aged 15-59 years participated in caregiving for household members, while male participation in the same age group stood at 21.4 per cent. Female participants spent about 140 minutes a day on caregiving activities, compared to 74 minutes by male participants.
The current pattern of falling TFR in India is temporary, arising primarily due to postponement rather than a real decline in fertility, observes Prof James, former director and senior professor at IIPS. Real TFR decline, such as that seen in countries like South Korea and Japan, occurs when a substantial proportion of women and men remains unmarried.
“There is no such evidence here. In fact, more than 90 per cent of young people in India get married. That’s because remaining unmarried is not a viable option in our country, given the familial pressures and weak social security system. Most young Indians are postponing marriage or childbirth mainly to complete their education or achieve enough financial stability.”
Prof Kulkarni views Andhra Pradesh’s population push more from a political perspective. The delimitation amendment proposed last month has already raised concerns among states with lower population growth. There are fears that the situation will become severe after 2050, when many states may see population decline while others continue to grow.
“Developed states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Punjab, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, which are already facing a decline in TFR, will witness actual population decline over the next 20 years. Population growth in higher-TFR states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar is also falling. They will overcome this lag over the next decade,” says Prof Kulkarni.
Unlike the fertility transition in the West, which took 100-200 years, family planning campaigns across developing Asian countries led to a much faster decline in birth rates, says Prof Goli. “It took 44 years for this transition to take place in India, while China reached it in 29 years and South Korea in just 19-20 years. China and South Korea rapidly developed infrastructure, education, skills and human capital to become East Asian Tigers but India has not been able to fully reap the benefits of its demographic dividend,” he says. The lack of strong work-family policies in India is responsible for the wage and employment penalties experienced by working mothers — often referred to as the motherhood penalty, he adds.
According to the World Bank Group, in urban India, mothers face a wage penalty of nearly 18 per cent compared to non-mothers, while rural areas show negligible wage effects but a steep decline in overall labour force participation.
The youth population, which once represented more than 30 per cent of India’s total population, is expected to shrink as the fertility rate continues to fall and fewer children are born, say economists Santosh Mehrotra and Jajati Parida in their latest book, ‘India Out of Work’. With the country’s population expected to start shrinking from 2062, the demographic window of opportunity is narrowing for India, they warn, adding that the country needs to rethink its growth story.
“We are empowering women with better careers and education but the traditional gender roles continue to impose a double burden on them as caregivers,” says Prof James. “If India wants to capitalise on the advantage of its large female workforce, women need to be assured of social and financial security, even when they take leave to give birth.”
