Fertility, Education, and Development: Evidence from India
Author(s)
Dreze, Jean; Murthi, Mamta
Abstract
India is in the midst of a demographic transition that exhibits striking spatial differences. With few exceptions, fertility and mortality have been declining, but from greatly varying levels and at different speeds from state to state. In recent years, however, doubts have been expressed about the ability of the social development approach to foster an adequately rapid slowdown of population growth. We argue that the Indian experience does not warrant this disenchantment with the social development approach. India is not a model of social development by any means, but many Indian states are making reasonable progress with fertility decline through nonauthoritarian methods. This progress owes a great deal to the improvement of female literacy and the decline of child mortality, and much more can be achieved in those directions. Experiments with authoritarian intervention, by contrast, have had disastrous results. This is not to dispute that more can and should be done in India in the field of family planning. Indeed, providing convenient and informed access to contraception (including nonterminal methods) is an essential component of the social development approach, much neglected in India so far.
