Why in news:

• A central government survey has recently shown that Jammu and Kashmir has a lower fertility rate than any other state in India barring tiny Goa and Sikkim, a finding that goes contrary to the claims about runaway Muslim birth rates.
  
  
  
   

Key Points:

• The National Family Health Survey (2019-21) reveals a sharp fall in the total fertility rate (TFR), which is the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime, in Jammu and Kashmir from 2.0 to 1.4, far below the national average of 2.
• In comparison, Uttar Pradesh has a TFR of 2.4, Bihar 3, Madhya Pradesh 2.0, Jharkhand 2.3, Punjab 1.6, Odisha 1.8, and Kerala 1.8.
• Only two states – Sikkim (1.1) and Goa (1.3) – and the Union Territories of Ladakh (1.3) and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (1.3) have TFRs below Jammu and Kashmir’s.
• The survey does not give religion-wise TFR breakups. However, since Jammu and Kashmir is the only large region in India with a Muslim majority, the findings test the claims of certain groups about a high birth rate among Muslims.
• On this development a local political leader has opined that he survey proves that the Muslim population, at least in Jammu and Kashmir, is growing only on WhatsApp.
• It must be noted here that using the bogey of a fast-increasing Muslim population, certain sectarian groups have been urging Hindus to have more children.
• These groups rely on lies to spread fear among the majority community that the Muslims’ numbers are growing.
• In September, the US-based Pew Research Center had said the Muslim fertility rate in India had plummeted by 1.8 from 4.4 to 2.6 between 1992 and 2015, against a fall of 1.2 among Hindus from 3.3 to 2.1
  
  
  
   

Changing trends:

• Previously, women’s only job was to produce children and take care of the family. With growing education, women (in Kashmir) are becoming more job-oriented.
• They want to be on a par with men in every sphere of life and thereby, they don’t want to have a big family.
• There are many reasons that have been cited like late marriages, (rising) obesity in Kashmir and a rise in infertility, that is, the inability to get pregnant.
• Many in Kashmir believe that one reason for late marriages or women’s failure to find husbands is the increasing deaths among the youth because of militancy.
• Experts have, however, played down the idea that many women were remaining unmarried because there were not enough men.
• According to them, maybe militancy is one of the reasons, but resultantly, families often plunge into economic crisis and women become breadwinners of the family, thus delaying their marriages.
• Government officials have portrayed the decline in the fertility rate as a rare success.
• Director-general, family welfare department, in recent statement said that their family welfare programme has been a success in Jammu and Kashmir.
• An expert consultant with the department said the survey had shown that women had access to contraception and were increasingly opting for just two children while delaying the second birth.
• The national TFR has declined to 2.0 from the value of 2.2 found during the earlier NFHS of 2015-16.
• This is the first time India’s TFR has fallen below the so-called population replacement threshold of 2.1, at which a population is expected to replace itself exactly from one generation to the next under certain conditions.
• A health scientist and senior manager with the NGO Population Foundation of India, however, said India’s population was expected to rise in the short term and peak at about 1.6 billion between 2040 and 2050 before starting to decline.