Regional Demographic Convergence in India as the Country Slips Below the Replacement Rate
Most demographers agree that the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of India has dropped below the replacement rate of 2.1 to 2.2 children per woman. The United Nations Population Fund places it at 2.0 for 2024, while Database Earth puts it at 1.94. As the graph from the latter organization (below) shows, India’s fertility decline has occurred at a relatively even pace since peaking at 6.0 in 1964.
Such figures, however, mask significant regional variation over the vast country. Roughly a decade ago, I made a map of Indian demographic patterns contrasting the low fertility present at the time (2012) in the south and far north with the moderately high levels of fertility found in the north-center and the northeastern periphery. A series of new maps that I have just made, based on 2024 data, show a more muted regional pattern. Currently, only one large state, Bihar, has a TFR above 2.5, and only two additional large states, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand, remain above the replacement rate. (Provided, of course, that the data are accurate.)
Although north-central and far northeastern India still have higher fertility than the rest of the country (see the map below), a general convergence has taken place. When I began teaching world geography in the late 1980s, India’s southwestern state of Kerala grouped with Sri Lanka as the only polities in South Asia that had moderately low human fertility. By 2012, Kerala, with a TFR of 1.7, was well below the replacement level – as was neighboring Tamil Nadu and several other southern Indian states, as well as a few states in other parts of the country. Today, the southeastern half of India is significantly below the replacement rate, while parts of the far north have entered a regime of extremely low fertility. India’s Himalayan state of Sikkim, for example, posted a TFR of 1.1 children per woman in 2024. If Sikkim were an independent country, as it essentially was before annexation by India in 1975, it would be tied with Singapore in the second lowest slot, ahead of only South Korea.
As the next map in the series shows, the regions of relatively high fertility in India’s north-center and far northeast experienced sharper drops in fertility between 2012 and 2024 than the rest of the country, illustrating the continuation of the convergence process. The large state of Madhya Pradesh (population 88 million), for example, saw its TFR drop from 3.0 to 2.0, a remarkably fast decline. The mostly Christan (Baptist) state of Nagaland in the far northeast experienced a larger drop, from 3.3 to 1.7. In contrast, Kerala and Tamil Nadu in the far south posted modest increases, from 1.7 to 1.8 in both states. This development indicates that southern India is unlikely to descend into a regime of extremely low fertility.
The final map in the series puts the fertility rates of Indian states in regional context by including the 2024 TFR data for nearly countries. As can be see, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh are all below the replacement rate, while Myanmar (Burma) is essentially at that level (2.1). It is a different story, however, in the northeast, where Pakistan (3.3) and Afghanistan (4.3) remain well above the replacement rate.
