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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Older, wiser mother changing family portrait -Subodh Varma
-The Times of India


Silently, the warp and weft of Indian families is changing, perhaps forever. Women are getting married later, they are having babies later and the gap between successive children is getting larger. Put this together with the fact that the average number of children born to a woman continues to decline, and children survive more than in the past, and you can see that families are being much more consciously organized than ever before. There are differences between states, between regions within states and a persistent gulf between rural and urban areas. But the over-arching trends are unmistakable.

These striking patterns emerge from an analysis of the recently released details of the 2012 Sample Registration System (SRS) survey carried out by the Census office. The survey covered 7.35 million persons.

In 2012, about 25 million babies were born to women in the reproductive age group of 15 to 49 years. That's about 82 births for every 1,000 women, called the general fertility rate (GFR). It's a considerable decline of 18% from a decade ago, when the GFR was nearly 100. But it is the finer details of births that reveal far-going changes in families.

Three quarters of all babies were born to mothers between the ages 20 to 29. The earlier custom of teen marriage and teen motherhood has declined by over 32% in a decade. About 43% of babies are born to mothers 20-24 years old.

But there is a sharp divergence after that. In the 25-29 age group, births fall dramatically in rural areas while in urban areas an increasing number of women prefer this age to have their children.

Rural fertility is often high in the 20-24 age group as the age at marriage still remains low and adoption of temporary contraceptive methods is relatively less, explained K S James, professor and head of the Population Research Center, Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore.

"A sharp decline in fertility beyond the 20-24 age group happens because in rural areas the trend is to have marriage followed by two quick children and sterilization. Various surveys show that the average age at sterilization is very low in India," he said.

In urban areas, age of marriage remains higher resulting in births taking place in the 25-29 age group as well. While 53% of births are in the 20-24 age group, 47% are in the 25-29 age group.

Another dramatic change from previous years is the interval between births. For the first time, more than half the current births in urban areas were three years or more after the previous birth. In rural areas, such a birth interval was observed among 40% of current births.

This is due to higher prevalence of temporary contraceptive use in urban areas, says James. In India, there has been an "over-emphasis on sterilization" according to James, leading to lower birth intervals. As families become more confident of using temporary contraceptives, birth intervals can be managed effectively.

Statewise trends show that the three big states in eastern India -- Assam, West Bengal and Odisha -- and Kerala in the south all have more than half the current births after three-year gaps. But in many north Indian states like Bihar, Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh as well as the three southern states of Tamil Nadu, AP and Karnataka, the three-year interval is seen in less than 40% of current births.

Between 2000-02 and 2010-12, the GFR has declined by nearly 25% in several states including UP, West Bengal, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. Laggard states in terms of the decline include Gujarat (a decline of only 11%), Bihar (17.3%) and Karnataka (17.4%). Kerala (10%) and Tamil Nadu (17%) too have smaller declines, but their fertility rates are already well below the national average.