Explained: How China's Declining Population Is A Lesson For India, Why Some Still Support Population Control Law?

China's declining population should serve as a lession against population control measures for India, according to experts.

China's population declined for the first time in decades in 2022. The National Bureau of Statistics in China reported a drop of 8,50,000 in population at the end of 2022 and it marked the beginning of what is expected to be a long period of population decline, despite all government efforts to reverse the trend. 

Earlier, China amended its one child policy —introduced in 1979— to allow two children in 2016 and further relaxed it in 2021 to allow three children.

Citing China's case, the experts said India must learn from the experience of China on the inefficacy of coercive population policies. India is set to become the world's most populous country by mid-April. 

Here we explain what the experts have said, what are the population control proposals in India, and why such proposals are made.

China's case a lesson for India: Experts

The basic idea behind China's One Child Policy was to limit the population growth. With limited resources, developing countries often find it hard to feed and allocate resources for ever-growing population. Hence they focus on family planning. 

However, China went much ahead of family planning and brought in a government policy to allow a couple to have only one child. This resulted in a severe fall in population growth, so much that it has now gone into negative. Moreover, Chinese families now don't prefer to have multiple children because of economic, social, and lifestyle reasons even though they can now legally have up to three children.

"Generations of Chinese people have lived without siblings and are used to small families - affluence has meant less need for multiple children to become family-supporting workers, and young professionals say they'd rather give one child more advantages than spread their income among several kids," noted BBC in 2021.

This is a lesson for India to not implement any law on the number of children as it can backfire, as per experts.

The Population Foundation of India (PFI) said several Indian stats and Union territories (UTs) are already facing aging population — like China.

The PFI in a statement said, "The stringent population control measures have landed China in the midst of a population crisis. Today, Sikkim, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Puducherry, Punjab, Ladakh, West Bengal and Lakshadweep also face the challenge of an aging population, labour pool in short supply and an increase in sex-selective practices, given the fertility rate which is well below the replacement level of Total Fertility Rate (TFR), which is defined as the rate at which the population exactly replaces itself."

The reduced TFR will result in an age-structural transformation wherein the states will have a demographic dividend in the initial years, but an aging population in the long run, said the PFI. 

The PFI said, "This will increase the elderly dependency ratio and increased morbidity levels in terms of non-communicable diseases, in the long run. Going forward, these states will require huge amounts of resources for financial support of the elderly and address their health care needs."

The linkage between higher development and a decline in TFR is clearly borne out by states such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh, which provide better access to education and development opportunities, according to PFI.

The PFI said, "China’s reducing population should serve as a clarion call for India, on not only what to do – but also what not to do. India must put an end to the buzz and noise around the possible introduction of a two-child norm. 

"In order to leverage our demographic dividend and the wealth of human resource in India, it is critical that development interventions are geared towards education with a focus on gender equity, economic development and access to family planning services."

Akhila Sivadas, Executive Director at Centre for Advocacy and Research, told PTI that for India there can be no one standard response with a clear south-north divide on this issue with the latter continuing to have the advantage of a demographic dividend or youth power. 

"The moot question is whether they can leverage the advantage and as a nation can we address disparate challenges related to the issue from adverse child sex ratio, ageing population as well as the rising youth population," said Sivadas.

How China's population policy backfired

China has witnessed a declining trend in proportion of people in the age group of 15-59 years, from 22.9 percentage points in 2000, 16.6 percentage points in 2010 and 9.8 percentage points in 2020. 

As predicted by demographers, Chinese population is growing old and the proportion of people aged 60 years and above is 18.7 per cent of total population in 2020 against 13.3 per cent in 2010.  

Stricter birth limits have created a rapidly ageing population and shrinking work force that is straining the country’s economy, the experts said.  

The population control measures have led to a skewed sex ratio and a decline in the number of women of the reproductive age group, which will be hard to reverse, they said.

Why some still prefer population control policy in India?

The calls for population control policies in India often come from right-wing quarters who see this in a Hindu-Muslim binary and say that India's Muslim popoulation will one day, if not checked, overshoot the Hindu population.

To retain India's Hindu majority character, they support a law limiting the number of children a fammily can have.

However, available data suggests that Muslims are not likely to outnumber Hindus in India, despite their population growing and Hindu population declining. Moreover, the state intervention itself is deemed to not be workable solution – even by some right-wing figures.

From 1951 to 2011, Indian Muslims grew from 9.8 per cent to 14.2 per cent. In the same period, Hindus declined from 84.2 per cent to 79.8 per cent. While some on the Hindu Right see this as a result of conversion, reflected in anti-conversion laws made lately, experts say it's related to different fertility rates of the two communities. 

Former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi, author of the book The Population Myth: Islam, Family Planning and Politics in India, earlier noted that the difference between Hindu and Muslim fertility rates is not wide.

"Yes, Muslims have the lowest levels of family planning (FP) – only 45.3 per cent. Their total fertility rate (TFR) is 2.61 which is the highest. But the fact that Hindus are not far behind, with second lowest FP at 54.4 per cent, and second highest TFR of 2.13, is completely missed," said Quraishi.

However, the Muslim fertility rate has seen a sharp decline in the past two decades, according to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS).

Citing NFHS report, The Indian Express reported, "In keeping with the downward trend seen over the years, the community’s fertility rate dipped to 2.3 in 2019-2021 from 2.6 in 2015-16. While all religious communities have shown a decline in fertility, contributing to a dip in the nation’s total fertility rate, the fall has been sharpest in the Muslim community, from 4.4 in NFHS 1(1992-93) to 2.3 in NFHS 5(2019-2021)."

However, such figures have not drowned calls for population control measures from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Hindu Right.

In 2021, The Economic Times reported that a law was proposed in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh that said that people with more than two children will be barred from contesting local body polls, applying for government jobs or receiving any kind of subsidy. 

Earlier, BJP MP Rakesh Singh proposed a law stating that every serving government employee shall give an undertaking to not “procreate more than two children" and also recommended rewards for those abiding by the two-child policy, as per ET.

Other BJP leaders and right-wing figures have also made such calls. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has also taken a stand on this.

The ET reported, "RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has specifically spoken about 'population explosion' in many of his important speeches in the last two years...RSS insiders say the organisation's demand for a national population control law will only intensify as it alleges Muslims continue to have more children than the national average."

In 2018, BJP leader Banwari Lal Singhal as an MLA said that Muslims are having more children and that it's a conspiracy.

He said, "Muslims were giving birth to 12-14 children....while Hindus restrict the number to one or two...The way the Muslim population is increasing, the existence of Hindus is in danger. It is a well-planned conspiracy to have a Muslim in the chair of president, prime minister and chief ministers...Hindus will become secondary citizens if Muslims become lawmakers...It's a conspiracy of Muslims to capture all assembly and parliamentary constituencies by giving birth to 12-14 children and establish their rule by 2030."

(With PTI inputs)