(ANSA) - NEW DELHI, NOV 26 - India has a population that is more female than male, it is starting to age, and, for the first time in its history, it no longer runs the risk of a further demographic explosion.
These three innovations emerge from the identikit obtained from the data, just published, of NFHS-5, the fifth round of the National Survey on the Health of Indian Families, conducted by the Ministry of Health.
According to the research, the photograph of the country in 2021 shows that there are 1020 women for every 1000 men; that the share of the population under 15, in 2005-06 of 34.9%, dropped to 26.5%; that the total fertility rate has dropped to 2 children per woman, a figure below 2.1, the level called the "rate of replacement", which sees each generation replace the previous one.
The survey, which covers the period 2019-2021, was carried out involving 650,000 households in hundreds of districts across the country and anticipates the next general census, which will be conducted in 2022.
"These numbers reveal a historical reversal of the trend, starting from the fact that India should no longer be called a country by missing women, as economist Nobel Amartya Sen called it in 1990, "said Yamini Aiyar, president of the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.
"Furthermore, if the birth rate of 2 is confirmed by the census, it will mean that the Indian population has reached its peak and will begin to decline, as is already the case in the southern states and in the richer parts of the country," concluded Aiyar. (HANDLE).