Are pro-natalist policies the way to deal with the problem of an aging population?

While India’s Total Fertility Rate drops to 1.9 in 2021, below the replacement fertility rate of 2.1, which indicates population stabilization, there are clear regional variations. Can you tell us more about the context of national and regional population growth?

Udaya Shankar Mishra: Let me first clarify that there is often confusion about population growth reaching fertility rates. Although India’s population growth has slowed down, the country’s population will continue to grow until 2070 to date, while the world’s population will continue to grow until 2080. This means that our population will stop growing earlier than the world average. The reason behind the population growth trajectory in India is population momentum, which can occur after a period of high fertility, and when large groups of women come into the reproductive age group over time. Even though the fertility rate is declining, they still make a significant contribution to the quantum growth of the population. The fertility rate replacement rate indicates that in terms of surrogate reproduction, each mother is replaced by another mother. But this does not mean that India’s population growth will immediately experience a negative growth rate.

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Having said that, I should also explain about the birth rate and death rate transition in India, which will give the result of the growth rate. Between 2060 and 2070, the death rate will cross the birth rate curve. Until then, the growth rate will continue. But there is a distinct north-south divide in growth rates. Population growth in the south is slower than in the north. But the age composition of the population continues to remain in a way that can sustain the population.

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There are two concerns worth highlighting. One is the problem of supporting the population, and the other is the aspect of federal representation, which Mr. Stalin spoke about. Population support issues include the size of the working-age population, the size of the non-working population, population age, structure, and composition. But federal representation is about part of the state’s population, which needs to be reconsidered. In this regard, I have done some work with the last Finance Commission where we added demographic performance to the population reading, so that you do not only see the number of the population but also qualitative aspects such as longevity.

Can you share some data with us to show the scale and pace of aging in different countries?

Udaya Shankar Mishra: The scale and pace of aging is actually measured by the proportion of the population that is aging. In 2021, Bihar’s proportion of aged population will be 7.7% compared to India’s 10.1%. Compare that to Tamil Nadu or Kerala, where the proportion is higher than the national average – 16.5% in Kerala and 13.7% in Tamil Nadu. When this pattern is projected for 2036, the share of elderly population in Tamil Nadu will grow from 13.7% to 20.8% and in Kerala from 16.5% to 22.8%, while in Bihar it will grow from 7.7 % to 11%. Thus, the rate of aging in northern states with high fertility is lower. And I would say that this aging is not only due to declining fertility rates, but also due to increased longevity in the southern states.

Should rapid aging be a problem or is it part of the natural progression of population change over time? What should we worry about?

Gita Sen: It is part of natural progress. The question, however, when you think about the population of the State or country. There are many different approaches to development, and policies about population and fertility play a big role in what to worry about and how to deal with them. So what we have to worry about is actually various development and social factors, including health factors, as the population ages. These include non-communicable diseases, heart problems, cancer, and more. The second is about projects and what they will do for the aging population. As the economy becomes more and more IT connected, physical strength and muscles have become less critical. This opens the door to the kind of work that parents can do. There are also other elements, such as migration, and how people deal with gender inequality and care services, which are critical regardless of the age of the population.

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Udaya Shankar Mishra: In fact, the pessimistic view of aging is mainly due to reading aging in a static way rather than a dynamic way. A dynamic reading of aging will take into account life expectancy, which should be moving up. Second, the characteristics of the elderly population in the future will be very different from the current elderly population. So, in addition to numbers, we also need to take into account the characteristics of the aging population because all elderly people cannot be considered unproductive.

Given the pace of aging in southern countries, having more children is the solution?

Gita Sen: In the first half of independent India, we were concerned about the ‘population bomb’. As a result, we tried various policies, such as forced sterilization, which did not work well and resulted in human rights violations. Now we seem to be swinging in the other direction, which is, how do we get people to have more babies? We are talking about incentives. The incentives that Mr. Naidu talks about are absurd. For example, they mentioned that you can only vote in local elections if you have more than two babies. The previous policy said that you can only stand for local elections if you have less than two babies. So, we keep swinging. If one thinks that people will make decisions about electoral participation based on whether they have more or less babies, it is absurd. What happened when we had disincentives before? Any local strongman who has five children will simply claim that he only has two and say that the remaining three are not his, and that they have relatives or neighbors. Now if you tell someone they should have two or more, it’s very easy to trot out someone else’s child and say it’s mine.

Why do young couples not want to have children? Isn’t it the policy of the government to also try and understand and learn?

Gita Sen: Since 2015, around the world, some countries, such as Hungary, Poland, Greece, Finland, and Sweden, where aging is a major problem, have moved in the direction of pro-natalist policies. In these policies, the government tries to increase maternity leave or paternity leave and increase child support or reduce taxes if you have another child. They are also trying to give cash incentives to people who have children. Does this not work? Because of the cost of living. Is there enough housing? What is the cost of raising a child? How much does it cost to put a child in kindergarten and then go to school? Even in India, the problem is very serious. Another aspect is the large opportunity cost for women, who are responsible for unpaid childcare. They stop working, either permanently or for a short time. And when they return, they will lose their place on the promotion ladder. So, it is not possible for a woman to want to have two or three children.

Given all these regional disparities, what should be at the heart of population policy?

Gita Sen: Questions of human cost, human rights, and gender equality. Second, we need to look at the effectiveness of our policies. This cannot be done through coercion, but by making them useful in society, which also has a financial cost. So we need to address the needs of our aging population in the form of health care, or use technology to create job opportunities. There is also a huge potential for trained, empathetic care when we have very serious employment problems. But we cannot treat care service workers as cheap labor. We have to take care of them.

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But I would also like to add that from the point of view of ecological sustainability, it might not be a bad idea to move to smaller population sizes and to surrogate fertility. We need to think about planetary requirements and living standards that provide a decent way of life, ensure work-life balance, and gender equality.

Listen to the conversation on The Hindu Parley podcast