Syllabus Connect :- GS I ( Population and associated issues)
Context
Recently, population control measures are being discussed by the states of Assam and Uttar Pradesh. Many other states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Odisha have been following a two-child norm for local body elections for a while.
The bill proposed by the Uttar Pradesh law commission suggests that those with one or two children be made eligible for benefits in terms of increment in job promotions, monetary benefits, health coverage benefits and many more perks.
More than two children might involve penalties such as being debarred from government jobs and local body elections, and limiting ration cards to four people. The logic being offered is that a dip in population will allow UP to reach sustainable development goals and an equitable distribution of resources.
Population Trends
1) The population of India exploded between 1930 and 1980, with decadal growth of 11 per cent in the 1931 census increasing to around 25 per cent in the 1981 census.
2) Since 1981, the population growth has seen declining trends, and in the 2011 census, India saw a 17.1 per cent decadal growth rate.
3) Table 1 below shows that UP has started showing a declining trend in the last decade, which is a positive sign towards population stabilization.
4) A Lancet study in 2020 has projected that India’s population will peak around 2048 to 160 crores and thereafter it will see a decline and reach around 109 crores around 2100.
Trends in TFR
1) The Total Fertility Rate at the national level is 2.2 births per woman according to NFHS- 4, 2015-16 (NFHS, 2015-16).
2) The TFR is projected to decline to 1.24 by 2020.
3) Several states already have a TFR lower than the national average.
4) Uttar Pradesh, too, has seen a decline in TFR from 4.8 children per woman in 1992 to 2.7 children per woman in 2016 (Table: 2). This is in spite of a fall in child mortality rate from 83 in 2000 to 43 in 2016 (Health and Family Welfare Department, U.P., 2021).
Trends in Contraceptive Use
1) The present contraceptive use of any method for India is 53.5 per cent.
2) Studies suggest that the sex composition of children is associated with contraceptive use in India.
3) Couples with four or more children are more likely to use modern contraceptives, when they have at least one son and one daughter. They are less likely to use contraceptives when they have all daughters and no sons.
4) For states like UP, the contraceptive uses of any method have been below the national average and unmet needs are quite high, around 18 per cent (Table 4). In such cases, the state should focus on providing a basket of choices to the family.
Education is the Contraceptive
1) There is a reduction in the TFR for both the national level and UP, with the years of schooling.
2) Also, states like Kerala and Punjab with a TFR of 1.6 indicate the same.
3) From Table 5 it’s clear, the woman with no schooling has a high TFR of 3.07 for India and 3.5 for UP.
4) As education levels increase, the TFR decreases up to 1.71 for India and 1.9 for UP for more than 12 more years of schooling.
5) Studies have also indicated the same in the case of UP. Higher fertility was concentrated in districts with low levels of women’s education, predominantly in the north-central UP.
Conclusion
1) In India, the number of missing girls at birth has increased from 35 lakhs in 1987-96 to 55 lakhs in 2007-16.
2) Bringing any such population control bill will worsen in states where sex-selective abortion is still practiced.
3) Whereas there has been an overall improvement in sex ratio from 898 women per 1,000 men in 2001 to 912 in 2011, the child sex ratio (0-6 years) has seen a fall from 916 to 902 in the same period in UP.
4) This should be a cause of concern as any coercive measure is likely to worsen this ratio against girls.
Given UP’s large population and geography, family planning and fertility should be targeted. Bringing educational reforms and giving choices for family planning would work more appropriately. This would lead to an overall improvement in the fertility outcome of the state as well as at the national level.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.