By Shivani Giri & Salineeta Chaudhuri
India’s demographic trajectory is undergoing a historic transformation. According to the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5, 2019-21), the national Total Fertility Rate (TFR)—the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime—has declined to 2.0 children per woman, down from 2.2 in NFHS-4 (2015-16).
This fall brings India to the replacement level of fertility for the first time in its modern history. Yet, more recent estimates suggest India’s TFR has declined even further to 1.9 as of 2025, placing the country below the replacement threshold of 2.1 that is necessary to sustain a stable population in the long run.
This narrative of fertility decline has traditionally been celebrated as a marker of development: reduced fertility driven by improvements in education, health, and gender equality. But Claudia Goldin’s influential work on fertility transitions adds a critical lens to this story. Goldin argues that while some fertility decline reflects empowered choice, as women gain education and economic opportunities, it can also reflect constraint, where individuals want children but are unable to have them due to structural, social, or environmental barriers.
The distinction matters: voluntary fertility decline is consistent with welfare improvements, but constraint-driven decline signals deeper systemic failures.
Historically, India’s fertility decline was shaped by policy and socio-economic change. Following NFHS trends over multiple rounds, fertility has fallen across regions, with notable variations among states and communities. In NFHS-5, many states, especially in the south and urban centres, reported TFRs well below replacement level.
For example, Delhi’s TFR stood at 1.6, while states like Gujarat and Karnataka hovered around 1.9-1.7, far below the national average. In contrast, some northern and central states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, retained higher TFRs above 2.2 and even 3.0 in certain groups.
These variations demonstrate that India is not on a uniform fertility trajectory but on a spectrum where contextual conditions matter. Urbanization, rising educational attainment, and delayed age at marriage have facilitated fertility decline in many regions as a matter of choice. In this sense, families are rationally opting for fewer children in response to higher opportunity costs and economic expectations.
Recent research indicates that environmental stressors, especially air pollution and heat exposure, are increasingly impacting reproductive health in India. Fine particulate matter (PM2.5), pervasive in many Indian cities, has been shown to enter the bloodstream, generate oxidative stress, and impair reproductive systems.
Studies in Indian medical contexts have linked high PM2.5 exposure to significant reductions in sperm count and DNA integrity, compromising male fertility. Similar exposure among women is associated with hormonal disruption, reduced ovarian reserve, and increased risks of miscarriage, low birth weight, and preterm births. These effects are not merely behavioural outcomes but physiological constraints on reproduction.
Climate-driven heat stress further compounds the problem. Spermatogenesis, sperm production, requires temperatures lower than core body temperature, making male reproductive function highly sensitive to environmental heat. Prolonged exposure to extreme heat, already common in many Indian regions, has been associated with reduced likelihood of conception and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Such environmental constraints effectively reduce fertility potential, not by individual choice, but by biological impairment.
Beyond environmental factors, socio-economic pressures contribute to constrained fertility. Long working hours, job insecurity, and the absence of supportive childcare policies create conditions where couples delay childbearing or find it difficult to balance career and family responsibilities. Chronic stress, a well-documented disruptor of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, can negatively influence reproductive hormone regulation, reducing fertility in both men and women. This intersection of professional pressure and lack of social support exemplifies an institutional constraint where personal aspirations for family formation are hindered by systemic structures.
Claudia Goldin’s perspective helps disentangle the drivers of fertility decline. In developed economies, fertility decline has often coincided with rising female labour force participation and expanded reproductive autonomy, reflecting choice. Yet Goldin also warns that when fertility falls not because couples choose to have fewer children, but because they cannot have them due to structural constraints, the demographic transition reveals a different kind of crisis. In India today, both dynamics are at play: fertility limitation by choice in many urban and educated contexts, and fertility suppression by constraint where environmental risk, health challenges, and institutional rigidity shape reproductive outcomes.
India’s declining crude birth rate—the number of births per 1,000 population— mirrors this trend, falling alongside TFR in recent years, even as population growth momentarily continues due to demographic momentum. These shifts have profound implications for future population age structure, labour markets, and economic planning. Understanding fertility decline through Goldin’s lens requires moving policy beyond simple numerical targets. If decline reflects empowered choice, policy should continue to prioritise reproductive rights, education, and gender equality. But if decline increasingly reflects constrained environmental, occupational, or health-related conditions, then public health, pollution control, climate adaptation, workplace flexibility, and supportive family policies become essential.
Addressing air pollution and heat stress is not merely an environmental imperative; it is a matter of safeguarding reproductive health. Likewise, policies incentivising work-life balance, expanding childcare support, and ensuring accessible reproductive healthcare, including fertility diagnostics and treatment, are vital to ensure that fertility outcomes align with genuine choice, rather than silent constraint. India’s demographic future hinges not on reversing fertility decline, but on ensuring that reproductive outcomes reflect agency, opportunity, and health, not constraint. As Goldin’s work reminds us, the measure of a demographic transition is not just a statistic, it is whether people can have the families they desire, in the conditions they deserve.
[Dr Shivani Giri is an Assistant Professor, and Dr Salineeta Chaudhuri is an Associate Professor of Economics at CHRIST (Deemed to be) University in Delhi-NCR. The views expressed are their own.]
