DNA Edit: India beats China - Demographic dividend needs education, employment

This is one area where India has got the better of China. Its population grew at 1.2 per cent a year between 2010 and 2019, marginally higher than the global average of 1.1 per cent, but significantly, more than double China’s growth rate of 0.5 per cent.

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFA), India remains one of the most “highly fertile” countries in the world. Roughly, half of India’s population in 24 states has achieved the so-called replacement fertility rates of 2.1 children per woman, which is the desired family size when the population stops growing.

What will, however, fuel India’s population boom is the country’s large youth bulge. But India’s population control methods have been largely voluntary, unlike China’s mandatory ‘One-Child Policy’, and it is showing. India has made some groundbreaking shifts at the policy level, moving from a target approach to a rights-based approach.

Yet, India has not yet been able to move away from sterilisation incentives and disincentives, which should not have been used in the first place. But the phrase “the more things change, the more they stay the same” fits the last-mile delivery of services like a glove. Larger policies may have changed and reproductive rights are now recognised legally, but the fact remains that little has changed on the ground.

Women still account for at least 93 per cent of total sterilisations, even though male sterlisations are safer and easier. Then there is the other issue: there has been consistent lack of implementation of a rights framework within government schemes and programmes.

The UNFA assessment showed discrimination and exclusion of a range of persons, gross neglect of reproductive deaths within government schemes and polices and unavailability of safe abortion services. The silver lining in this entire exercise is that India has demonstrated that there is no need of coercion as contraceptives and family planning services can limit a family size.

Greater emphasis is needed on sex education, ensuring that young people can avail the information that is needed. The important thing to note here is that all the positivity of reaping demographic dividend will amount to nothing, if this vast mass of youngsters lack education and skills. Employment for young people is critical, as is developing public policies for the elderly on pension, services and support.

After all, as the UNFA report points out, the poorest 20 per cent households have the largest unmet need for contraception and reproductive health services, with adolescents, disabled, unmarried young people and the socially marginalised, among the most deprived.

It is on this section that India needs to sharpen its focus. Demographic dividends in a country with low skill and literacy levels, can turn into a nightmare in no time. Yet the report, appreciating the sensitivity of the situation, notes that despite the huge numbers involved, India has shown commitment by putting in its own money into reproductive health services.