DC Edit | Will Andhra Child Sops Work?

Andhra, one of the states that was in the forefront of family planning, has decided to give incentives to families that go for a third and fourth child. The immediate cause is a declining population trend that has been evident for some years now with the state’s total fertility rate hitting an all-time low of 1.5, a figure that is well below the population replacement level target of 2.1.

Andhra is not alone in fearing for the structure of the population in the future. Another state, Tamil Nadu, has posited that southern states would suffer from decades of family planning and a consequent decline in population rate when it comes to delimitation of constituencies. That may be a distinctly political view of the problem, but there is no denying there is an issue with the population projections, one of which shows that, at the current pace, nearly a quarter of Andhra’s population would be above 60 years of age by 2047.

The RSS view is also to call for more children to stabilise the population though it would be fair to surmise that its fear of one community facing extinction could be greater than the projections of decline and rise in ageing population as the decades roll by in the 21st century. An ageing population and shrinking workforce are indeed causes to worry about the future even in the nation that is the most populous in the world.

The point is Andhra’s one-time incentives of Rs 30,000 for a third child and Rs 40,000 for a fourth are wholly inadequate. China (TFR 1.3 in 2020) has incentivised births too, but it provides around Rs 35,000 a year for each child under the age of three in a family and other incentives like childcare payments that extend to 10 years. The point to ponder is whether financial incentives are enough to convince couples who are not so much into having children when young, if they would be inclined to have any at all.

It would be better if there were a national policy on tackling the population trend, but then the diversity of India is such that what applies to the south may not be applicable to the densely populated states of the north. The Andhra CM’s view is futuristic and it is hoped that his plan would have better results for his state than China has encountered in arresting its population decline.