New Delhi: India’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) – the average number of children a woman would have in her lifetime – is 1.9, as per the latest Sample Registration System (SRS) Statistical Report of 2024. According to the report, the TFR has fallen below the replacement level (the fertility at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next) in all the states, except six states in north India: Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.The report was released on Wednesday by the Office of the Registrar General of India under the Ministry of Home Affairs.India’s fertility trendsDemographic parameters such as the birth and death rates in a country, national and regional fertility rates, etc, help inform government planning and policy. India’s SRS, a joint effort of Union and state governments, is one of the largest demographic surveys in the world. Apart from providing the fertility and mortality indicators, it also includes data on crude birth rate, crude death rate and infant mortality rates.The latest SRS Statistical Report released on May 20 shows that India’s TFR in 2024 was 1.9. It was slightly higher in rural areas (2.1) than in urban ones (1.5) which means that rural women on average have more children than urban women. Education also played a role in this, with literate mothers having a lower TFR (1.8) than illiterate mothers (3.2).Delhi had the lowest TFR at 1.2, followed by Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal with TFRs of 1.3. Bihar recorded the highest TFR at 2.9India’s national TFR of 1.9 for 2024 is the same as the previous year, 2023. In 2023, however, India’s TFR had decreased to 1.9 from 2.0 for the years of 2022, 2021 and 2020. Also read: Modi Govt’s U-Turn: From Obsessing Over ‘Population Explosion’ to Rewarding High-Population StatesThis is the second consecutive year that India’s national TFR has fallen below the replacement level of 2.1.Replacement level fertility is the level of fertility at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next. This is usually 2.1 children per woman (where a woman produces two children who replace the mother and father). But this could be higher in countries with high infant and child mortality rates because the average number of births may need to be much higher to attain replacement level. For instance, some countries in sub-Saharan Africa like Nigeria, Sudan and Yemen have fertility levels of 4 or higher, as per this UN report in 2024. When fertility stays below 2.1 over time, population growth slows and can eventually turn negative, depending on the population’s age profile and gains in life expectancy, according to a Times of India report.North Indian states buck trendThe SRS Report of 2024 shows that the replacement level has not dropped in six northern states – Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, and in that order.Over a decade, Bihar has witnessed the least reduction in TFR, the ToI report said: a reduction of just 9.4%, from a TFR of 3.2 in 2012-14 to 2.9 in 2022-24. Chhattisgarh and Assam too are two high-TFR states that have shown relatively lesser reductions of 11.5 and 13%, respectively. In the same period, Delhi and Tamil Nadu, which already had a very low TFR of 1.7, fell by 29.4% and 23.5% respectively, the report added.States where the average number of children born to a woman fell below replacement level more than a decade back, now have the smallest proportion of the 0-14 age group in their total population, the data showed. Moreover, the 0-14 age group comprises just 18% of the population in Tamil Nadu while it is 31.5% in Bihar.Working population still growingThe SRS Report pointed out that India’s working age population (15-59 years) is still growing even in states with very low fertility — an indicator that the demographic window for India has still not closed. Birth rates, which are directly linked to fertility rates, are highest in the northern belt, as the regions shaded in orange show. Source: SRS Statistical Report, 2024.This age group constitutes 66.4% of India’s population (up from 64% in 2014) compared to the dependent population of 0-14 years (24%) and those above 60 years, less than 10%, the report noted.The proportion of those over 60 has gone up from 8.6% to 9.7% in India and it has increased in all states, it added. The state with the highest proportion is Kerala (15%) and the state that has seen the highest jump in the proportion of 60+ population between 2014 and 2024 is Tamil Nadu, from 10.6% to 14.2%. Assam has the lowest proportion, 7.6%.Very low fertility can lead to population declines, and a much older population, as per the 2024 UN report. “If sustained over decades, fertility levels below 1.4 births per woman result in rapid population decline and a pronounced shift in the population age distribution towards older ages,” it said.In 2024, fertility rates were below 1.0 in China, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Ukraine. Caption: Birth rates, which are directly linked to fertility rates, are highest in the northern belt, as the regions shaded in orange show. Source: SRS Statistical Report, 2024.