Is Bihar’s high replacement rate the result of poverty?

What does TFR rate of 3.0 mean for Bihar? Does it have any relation with poverty?

Sasavata Ghosh: TFR has increased to around 3.0 in Bihar for the last 6-7 years. According to the expert committee on population launch, Bihar will achieve replacement level of fertility (2.1) only in 2039. Bihar is the only backward state in terms of reproductive infection.

Bihar’s infant mortality rate has actually declined and in the past 42 to 27 per 1,000 live births. Other indicators such as women have also improved educational receipts, but the TFR of the state remains high. High TFR has some relations with poverty. But poverty is not the only reason for this. In Bihar, there is a culture of high fertility. According to calculations made from unique level data of 2019-21 National Family Health Survey of 2019-21 across the country, 67% of women said that the ideal number of children for them is two, while in Bihar, only 49.6% of women said so.

There are several government reports including Niti Aayog’s multi -faceted poverty index, which suggests that poverty is also decreasing in Bihar. But despite the improvement in poverty rate, the fertility rate in Bihar remains high.

Prasenjit bose: These are complex socio-economic questions and multi-dimensional poverty estimates that they themselves are perfect. I agree with Sasavata that cultural factors have an important function in determining the fertility rate. But I would also like to add that there are other economic factors in terms of urbanization, employment opportunities and livelihood opportunities, which are not actually occupied by MDP (multi -faceted poverty) estimates. Therefore, I will not read much in this deviation between TFR and MDP. This can be easy to understand a complex phenomenon. Finally both estimates are moving in the same direction – poverty is coming down and therefore TFR is.

SRS figures differentiate between urban and rural TFR. Across the country, urban TFR is 1.6 and rural TFR 2.2. Is there a wide difference between TFR in urban areas of Bihar, which is at 2.3, and in rural areas, is estimated at 3.1?

Sg: If we see a gap between rural areas across the country and TFRs in urban areas, it is 0.6 percentage points, while in Bihar, the difference is 0.8 points. There is no major difference between 0.6 and 0.8. But what is shocking is that the All India Urban TFR is 1.6, while in Bihar it is 2.3. This is shocking. Why is TFR so high in urban areas where the prosperous and educated classes of society live? Why is it above the replacement level of fertility?

Demographic Ansley J. Coale said that human reproductive behavior is ‘stones of conscious choice’. So if the fertility rate is higher than elsewhere, it is due to the conscious option of the people. Even if infant mortality has declined and contraceptives are used more, if fertility remains more in urban areas, it is a conscious option. Until and until people think that low reproductive size is really beneficial for them, TFR will remain high in Bihar.

Does a preference for sons, the state, is mainly an agricultural economy, and relatively small female workforce affects TFR?

PB: Yes, significantly. In fact, poverty and lack of livelihood and income opportunities have a huge impact on cultural options, including the number of children. Poor people have cultural priority not only for sons, but for more children. They want more labor, which will make more income. Poverty is why the fertility rate has been historically high everywhere. Cultural options are complicated with the process of social and economic development. But in the case of Bihar, I will specifically point to some economic factors. Despite being older, Bihar is one of the minimum industrial states. The surplus is labor and migration, which relate to the question of very high degrees of illiteracy and a rape primary education system.

The literacy rate in Bihar, especially female literacy rate, remains low. In the 2011 census, female literacy was around 53%. Is there a direct connection between female literacy and TFR or fertility?

Sg: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has constantly told that if we educate women, the fertility rate will be reduced. He has announced several schemes for students students including providing bicycles for himself. There is a positive relationship not only between education and TFR, but also between domestic prosperity and high educational attainment. The upper caste and to some extent rich houses generally send at least one son to better areas for higher education. However, in rich and landed homes in rural areas, parents prefer at least one son to stay back with them to take care and support their property. Therefore, family ideally likes two sons. If we look at the data more carefully, we will find that those who say that the ideal number of children is three, 88.2% want two sons. However, since the possibility of a sequential manner of two sons is only 26.4% according to a paper by Clarke in 2000, a significant part of families eventually ends with a large family size.

Professor Ghosh, in one of your papers, you told how mother -in -law acts as mediators among women of age and half workers who go to meet them during pregnancy. Can you throw more light on it?

SG: Women are getting more and more educated. Many programs in this regard are being implemented by the state government. Many of these women are first generation learners. But they have less employment and their risk to the outside world is limited. They have low bargain power and autonomy in the family, and social mobility. In our study, based on a primary survey of 2,250 women in six districts in Bihar, we found that women were not allowed to interact directly with Asha workers in the 15–49 years of breeding age group. These interactions were banned by his mother -in -law.

We now have empirical evidence that some states in the north have a high fertility rate while the fertility rate is decreasing in the south. Where does this take us especially in political context, with the question of delimitation on a large scale?

PB: I do not think that this problem should be discussed only in the context of Bihar, but in other states also we call Hindi Heartland – Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. These states are now responsible for a large part of the overall population of the country. We have a system of representative democracy where ‘a person, a vote, one value’ is a basic principle. As the delimitation debate opens, which is likely to be only after the next census, we will come in a very inconsistent shape of parliamentary and assembly constituencies in the north and south. We will come to the parliamentary constituencies in the states with a high TFR, of which a large number of people (2.5 million to 30 lakh voters) are being represented by a single MP, while the case will be different in states where TFR is already low or showing a falling trend. The question is whether they are going to pay the price to bring down the TFR rate (states with low/decreasing TFR). Will they be rewarded or punished for social and economic progress and policy successes? Because the allocation of resources by the Finance Commission is based on population size. Some courses are on policy makers to improve and bring into an convergence trend. If the divert trend (between states with high TFR and low TFR) continues, we are looking at a disaster that can create serious questions for our democracy.