The Total fertility rate (TFR) is a measure of average number of children that would be born to a woman by the time she ends childbearing. TFR is considered one of the most important indicators of fertility. Talking about the TFR in J&K, it has seen a sharp decline since last two decades. According to National Health Survey-5, J&K has forth lowest TFR in the country. J&K has left behind world as well as country. TFR which was 3.6in 1991 declined to 2.3 in 2007 and stand at 1.4 in 2019-20 and keeping in view the trend.
All this is not the end here, it is going to decrease further in years to come. Fertility has witnessed a decline more in urban areas of Jammu and Kashmir compared to rural areas. While talking about the TFR figures of world they stand at 2.4 in 2020 and for India these figures stand at 2.2. Kerala is the only state which is moving against the wind, experienced an increase in TFR to 1.8 in 2019-20 from 1.6 in 2015-16.If the number falls below approximately 2.1, then the size of the population starts to fall. Coming to the scenario of J&K,a question comes to mind, where are we heading? Are we moving to right direction? This will mean that a married couple (two individuals) wouldn’t be having enough potential to even have two children.
The consequence of such a phenomenon will be that there will be decline in the absolute population in the years to come. One such negative impact of all this will mean that, a time will come where aged people will be more in comparison to young population who bears the responsibility to feed them. The religious preaching’s about the phenomenon are out of the scope of this article. Going into the causes of so, there are multiple expert opinions having a vast explanation behind, but all these explanations merge around some social and economic factors coupled with changing food habits, living patterns, Late Marriage, increased stress levels among men and women. The aim of this write-up is to aware the common people about the scenario where we stand currently.
The author is Research Scholar Economics
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.