State key to fertility rates, not religion: Government data

Cultural and geographical factors, and the level of development of different states seem to be more important determinants of how many children a woman has than her religion. The latest state-wise data of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2015-16 shows that the total fertility rate (TFR) of different religious communities shows greater variation between states than between communities.

For instance, though the all-India TFR — defined as the number of children likely to be born to a woman over her lifetime — is 2.6 for Muslims, compared to 2.1 for Hindus and 2 for Christians, the rate for Muslims varies widely from 1.7 in Tamil Nadu to 4.1 in Bihar, the state with India’s highest fertility rate. Similarly, the Hindu TFR ranges from 1.4 in Kerala to 3.3 in Bihar.

In fact, in Chhattisgarh, the Muslim TFR of 2.1 was lower than the 2.2 for Hindus, and in Odisha Muslims had the lowest TFR among the three sizeable religious groups — Hindus, Christians and Muslims.




While the Christian TFR was lower than for Hindus or Muslims at the nationwide level, in several northeastern states Christians had significantly higher fertility rates than Hindus.

One result of this kind of wide variation between states is that even Hindus and Muslims have fertility rates at or below replacement levels in several states. In case of Muslims, there are 10 such states. All but one of these states had a TFR well below replacement level. In case of Hindus, 18 states had overall TFRs at or below the replacement rate.

Interestingly, though Christians’ country-level TFR of 1.99 is well below replacement level, it was clearly above replacement level in most northeastern states and Chhattisgarh, which are all states with above-replacement level fertility rates.