Problems with Uttar Pradesh’s population bill

Author: Srinivas Goli, UWA

On 19 July 2021, the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh proposed a new population policy, the Population Bill 2021. The core objective of the bill is to ‘control, stabilise and provide welfare to the population of the state by implementation and promotion of [a] two-child norm’. The bill aims to do so through a set of incentives and disincentives for having children.

A target-based approach to fertility decline through sterilisation-based incentives (or disincentives) has existed in India for a long time. But as a signatory to the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, the country agreed in principle to move away from a coercive incentive-based approach and to instead emphasise rights-based approaches. These included extending reproductive health care services to achieve population stabilisation and development. What might have prompted Uttar Pradesh to reinstate a coercive legal approach?

In its introduction chapter, the draft bill posits that current levels of poverty, illiteracy and lack of access to basic amenities and health care in the state are due to its population size. This demonstrates the Law Commission of India’s lack of scientific knowledge on the relationship between fertility and socio-economic status — it is socio-economic status that drives fertility, not the other way around.

India is already witnessing a decline in fertility. The latest government reports suggest the country has reached its target of two children per woman, with a majority of states now below this level. Uttar Pradesh is still lagging in this regard, but at its current rate of decline it will reach this goal within five years. The latest National Family Health Survey report suggests the number of children born to younger mothers, whom the new policy targets, is already two or below.

The average woman in Uttar Pradesh wants to have two or fewer children, and this holds across the socio-economic spectrum and among the Muslim population. The real problem for the state, therefore, is the unmet need for family planning. At the outset, this bill is ill-conceived, ill-timed, and coercive.

There are number of hurdles to the bill being implemented in its current form, and doing so would entail serious demographic and socio-economic effects. Among the public servants eligible for the incentives, most of whom tend to be well educated and hail from middle- and higher-income households, more than 90 per cent have two or fewer children. Even if the state were in a fiscal position to provide incentives to all eligible families, doing so would deepen the divide between poor and non-poor families.

Implementing the stated benefits to couples living below the poverty line carries practical difficulties. These families experience high rates of child mortality, which is a key factor driving the higher number of births. It is difficult to convince this sub-population to stop after their first child when they do not have the assurance of their child’s survival. There are 15 million households living below the poverty line in Uttar Pradesh — so even if the state could convince half of them to have one child, it is doubtful it has the financial resources to make good on its promises.

Indian socio-cultural norms encourage post-marriage migration of girls from parental families to in-law families. Without ideational changes and provision of old-age social security, it is difficult to convince couples to form single-child families with one daughter. Even if these households were lured in with huge incentives, it could lead to high rates of sex-selective abortions and sterilisation regrets in the state. In addition to violating reproductive rights, such efforts can lead to divorce, the abandonment of women, mental health issues and an increasing ageing burden.

The disincentives set out in the bill, such as disqualification from social safety nets, education and health care benefits and political participation, will create law-and-order problems for the state. Resources will have to be diverted away from constructive developmental work to manage the crisis that will arise from the implementation of the bill, derailing progress towards other sustainable development goals.

Such coercive methods of population control will also affect the demographic transition. Once fertility reaches unsustainably low levels, reversal with fertility incentives is difficult. Rapid ageing at low levels of health and socio-economic development will reduce prospects of reaping the demographic dividend and push the state towards getting older before getting richer.

The way forward is for the state to focus its efforts on the unmet need for family planning, infant mortality rates and son preference. Committing resources to strengthening education, health care and employment is a more effective way of achieving the desired population stabilisation while also yielding quality population and economic outcomes.

Srinivas Goli is a New Generation Network Scholar at the Australia India Institute and UWA Public Policy Institute, University of Western Australia, and Assistant Professor in Population Studies at the School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

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