Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s decision to give a one-time incentive of Rs 30,000 for couples having a third child and Rs 40,000 for the fourth to reverse a falling birth rate does not take a comprehensive view of the demographic conundrum. The decline in the total fertility rate (TFR), which is the number of children a woman has across her lifetime, has created the depressing prospect that India will grow older before it gets richer.
Rising inequality between the richest and poorest sections of the population has aggravated the distress of millions because of higher expenditure on public goods, such as education and healthcare, besides spending on food, housing, and mobility.
Against this backdrop, states and union territories with relatively better development and poverty reduction measures have brought their TFR to below the replacement level, that is, women having fewer than 2.1 children on average, the level needed to keep the population from declining in real terms.
In the case of Andhra Pradesh, the TFR, as per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) of 2019-21, is 1.7. Other frontline performers on population since the 1990s, such as Punjab, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and parts of the Northeast, would also have to deal with a larger share of older adults.
The population question is politically fraught because of fears that states that did well on family welfare may suffer the penalty of drastically fewer Lok Sabha and legislative seats being added during delimitation.
Naidu’s incentive plan, therefore, has its basis in both the economy and politics. In fact, former Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin said it was time to think of having more children to avoid political marginalisation by the populous Hindi belt.
Need for long-term welfare commitments
AP has already incentivised families through its Talliki Vandanam scheme that provides Rs 15,000 per year for a school-going child, and the latest proposal seeks to build on that.
The pertinent question to ask is whether political leaders are willing to commit themselves to the long haul, treating housing, healthcare, education and skill-building as a state responsibility and not leaving them at the mercy of profit-seeking market mechanisms.
A lack of legal guarantees on welfare, such as education subsidies throughout the school-college cycle, makes families uncertain. Also, children should ideally be covered by full health insurance paid for by the state and available through public and private hospitals, unlike the existing patchy and dysfunctional system where even Ayushman Bharat coverage is not universally honoured.
Political leaders pay lip service to problems around safe transport to school, and cities and towns cannot offer enough parks and recreation. It is evident from countries with a history of good welfare that development and women’s agency tend to reduce birth rates. Realising the full potential of every child born has to be the goal.
