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PFI Note on Two Child norm 2021 |
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Why the two-child norm is not an effective strategy for stabilizing population?
The two-child norm (2CN) is a target-oriented family-size policy prescription, which compels
couples to limit their families to two children through a series of incentives and disincentives, the
primary one being disqualification of candidates to contest elections to Panchayati Raj
Institutions. The 2CN draws inspiration from China’s one child norm policy, and is only applicable
to persons in the active reproductive age groups. Incentives and disincentive schemes associated
to the norm include a minimum marriage age, grants to stakeholders that properly effect change,
restrictions on the right to contest elections and incentives to strengthen village recording
systems.
There is no reason for India or any Indian state1 to consider the enforcement of a 2CN because
of impressive progress that has been made in reducing fertility and slowing down population
growth.
Measures that seek to enforcing limits on the number of children a family can have or a 2CN
always proven counter-productive.
At the national level:
1. Enforcing a two-child norm contradicts Government of India’s own position.
o As the first country to announce a family planning programme, India has always taken the
stand that ‘development is the best contraceptive.’ Introducing forced sterilization and
incentives for meeting sterilization targets (which a two-child norm is likely to bring with
it) during the national Emergency between 1976-78 had serious political repercussions.
But more significantly, it setback India’s family planning program by almost two decades.
o As a signatory to the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in
1994, India was among the first nations to endorse a human rights approach and
emphasize that a small family norm can be achieved through ensuring gender equality,
empowering women, and improving education.
o India’s National Population Policy (NPP) 2000 fully reflects the commitments made at the
ICPD and seeks to fulfill the unmet need for contraceptives and services by advocating a
small family norm without suggesting any limits on the number of children a family can
or should have.
o In December 2020, in an affidavit filed in the Supreme court on a petition seeking
implementation of a two-child norm the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare,
Government of India, stated that “International experience shows that any coercion to
have a certain number of children is counter-productive and leads to demographic
distortions. The Family Welfare Programme is voluntary in nature, which enables couples
1 See Annex 1 for the recent moves by Assam and Uttar Pradesh to introduce a 2CN.
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to decide the size of their family and adopt the family planning methods best suited to
them, according to their choice, without any compulsion.”
2. Enforcing a two-child norm is not necessary because most states have reached the
replacement Total Fertility Rate of 2.1. Others are rapidly reaching the replacement TFR of
2.
o India’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has declined substantially from 3.2 in 2000 to 2.2 (Sample
Registration System, 2018).
o Even by 2015-16, the replacement TFR of 2.1 had been achieved by 24 out of 36 states
and UTs. India’s urban TFR 1.8 – well below the replacement TFR of 2.1
o Progress since 2015-16 has been impressive. According to limited data released for 17
states and 5 UTs by NFHS-5 for 2019-20, only three (Bihar, Manipur and Meghalaya) are
yet to achieve a TFR of 2.1 or less.
o Bihar has accelerated the reductions in TFR without enforcing a two-child norm. Between
2015-16 and 2019-2020, Bihar’s TFR dropped from 3.4 to 3.0 (over four years). Urban TFR
in Bihar in 2019-20 is 2.4 – close to the replacement rate of 2.1
3. Drastic efforts to curb India’s fertility rates now will not slow down India’s population
growth rate significantly over the next 25 years.
o India’s population is projected to peak at 1.6 billion (from 1.3 billion today) by 2048.
Population momentum alone will account for more than 70 per cent of projected
population increase.
o After 2048, there will be a steep decline in India’s population when in 2100, the Total
Fertility Rate would have dropped to 1.3 and population would have come down to 1.1
billion.
4. Even China has given up its one-child policy. Alarmed by the negative consequences, even
China, the only country in the world to have adopted a coercive population policy, has
dropped its one-child and two-child policy.
5. No country except China has adopted a policy of limiting the number of children that a
family can have to lower fertility rates. High fertility societies like Indonesia and Bangladesh,
both Muslim dominated countries have lowered their fertility rates by promoting girls’
education, empowering women, providing a far wider range of contraceptives, more
convenient services, often provided at home by health workers
6. We have so much of our own experience to guide us on what needs to be done. India’s own
experience across states including Kerala and Tamil Nadu informs us about what is needed to
lower fertility and stabilize population: ensure the provision of basic services, expand
opportunities, invest in girls’ education, and ensure access to family planning services.
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At the individual and family level:
1. Indian women do not want to have more than two children.
o The average ideal family size among women age 15-49 was 2.2 in 2015-16.2
o The total wanted fertility rate3 in India is 1.8 children per woman, compared with the
actual fertility rate of 2.2 children.
o In India, only five states have a wanted fertility rate above the replacement level of
fertility—Meghalaya (2.8), Bihar (2.5), Manipur and Nagaland (2.3 each), and
Mizoram (2.2)
2. Evidence reveals that religion is not an important factor in determining family size.
Socioeconomic status, poverty, lack of education and employment opportunities among
women account for fertility differentials across the country.
o The wanted fertility rate among all religions is less than the replacement TFR of 2.1:
1.7 among Hindus, 2.0 among Muslims, 1.7 among Christians, and 1.4 among Sikhs.
o The TFR among Muslim women in Kerala (TFR = 1.86) and Tamil Nadu (TFR=1.74) is
lower than the TFR among Hindu women in Bihar (3.29) and Uttar Pradesh (2.67)
3. Girls schooling and basic education make a big difference in reducing fertility rates.
o Women with no schooling consider 2.6 children to be their ideal number of children,
compared with 1.8 children for women with 12 or more years of schooling.
4. A 2CN is iniquitous and unfair on the poor, vulnerable and marginalized communities who
have been denied equal access to basic social services.
o A 2CN affects marginalized sections of society the most: those who have less access
to adequate child and maternal health care services and have more children to
compensate for high Infant Mortality Rate. According to NFHS-4, 13% (or 29 million
currently married women in the age group of 15-49 years) of currently married
women have an unmet need for family planning and contraception use is the lowest,
among women from the Scheduled Tribe (45%) followed by Other Backward Classes
(47%) and those from the Scheduled Caste at 49%. Any attempt to impose penalties
is biased against the poor, the illiterate and socially disadvantaged groups in society,
the same groups that have historically faced discrimination and neglect.
5. A 2CN is gender insensitive and will end up discriminating even more against women and
the girl child
o Our experience from Madhya Pradesh and other states (where a 2CN has been enforced)
shows that it adversely impacts women - instances of men deserting their wives to deny
2 The National Family Health Survey asks women age 15-49 the number of children they would like to have if they
could start over again. Those who already had children were asked, ‘If you could go back to the time you did not
have any children and could choose exactly the number of children to have in your whole life, how many would
that be?’ asks women 15-49 years with children what is the ‘ideal’ number of children they would like to have had.
3 The total wanted fertility rate indicates the level of fertility that would result if all unwanted births were prevented.
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proof of a third child in order to contest local body elections, children being given up for
adoption, stark increase in sex-selective abortions and female foeticide (Buch 2005).
o As an outcome of the two child policy states such as Haryana and Punjab have witnessed
highly skewed sex ratios with lesser number of women to men. As a result, women are
sold as brides and are forced into sex work, treated as slaves, abused physically and
sexually and eventually abandoned. The changing social norms in terms of son meta-
preference (desire for a male child) has resulted in 21 million ‘unwanted girls’ in India
between 0-25 age group (Economic Survey 2017-18)
6. A 2CN norm undermines the fundamental rights of Indian citizens
o Reproductive rights are inalienable human rights and coercive strategies impede on many
reproductive rights including the right to information, the right to bodily integrity, and the
right to freely decide the number and spacing of children. These strategies deny
individuals the family planning options available before they make an important
reproductive health decision.
Six actions to achieve Population Stabilization in India:
Six actions are urgently needed in the high fertility Indian states to reduce fertility and stabilize
population.
1) Repeal Two Child Policy - States need to view their population as an asset for
development rather than a liability. It should abandon all incentive and disincentives and
instead enable couples to make their own positive reproductive choices through
strengthening family planning and development programs. Governments at all levels
need to spend more on healthcare, promote sexual and reproductive health services,
invest in skills education, create enabling livelihood opportunities for men and women,
and develop a robust public health service network.
2) Ensure girls complete at least ten years of schooling
3) Improve the quality of and access to family planning services throughout the country is
essential, as doing so leads to lower IMR and MMR, and therefore reduces desired fertility
rates. It is also important to improve the supply and quality of contraceptives by
expanding the basket of choice and promoting spacing methods, especially for young
population.
4) Introduce comprehensive reproductive sexual health education should be made
mandatory for in-school and out of school children and used as a tool to empower
adolescents and youth especially girls in order for them to make informed decisions.
5) Invest in gender equality initiatives such as ending early and forced marriages and
provide life-skills education to them to enable them to stay longer in the workforce are
extremely important, because empowering women to make their own decisions about
sexual and reproductive health is the single most important factor that can reduce
population momentum.
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6) Advocate male involvement and male responsibility for family planning reinforces a
man’s responsibility for reproductive decisions and his children, strengthens and reduces
discord in relationships.
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Annexure 1
Current status of two child policy in India
The most recent state to adopt the policy was Assam in 2021. The state announced that people
with more than two children will not be able to avail benefits under specific schemes funded by
the state. According to the National Family Health Survey – 5 (NFHS) 2019-2020, Total Fertility
Rate (TFR) in Assam is 1.9, which is less than the national average of 2.2. Data from the NFHS-5
shows that 77% of currently married women and 63% of men aged 15-49 in Assam want no more
children, are already sterilized or have a spouse who is already sterilized. This shows that even
without a coercive population policy, men and women want smaller families. The state,
therefore, needs to expand the basket of contraceptive choices, especially Long-Acting Reversible
Contraceptives (LARC), which are critical in view of our large population of adolescents and youth.
On July 9th 2021, the Uttar Pradesh State Law Commission released the first draft of the
proposed population control bill for the state. The draft bill has provisions to debar people who
have more than two children from the benefits of government schemes and perks to those who
follow the two-child policy. As per NFHS 4 , while UP’s sex ratio for the overall population is
995, the sex ratio at birth for children born in the last five years is 903 girls for every 1000 boys.
The data clearly indicates an alarming trend in sex selective practices in the state. Stringent
population control measures can potentially lead to an increase in these practices and unsafe
abortions given the strong son-preference in India, as has been witnessed in a few states in the
past. Instead, UP should prioritize addressing the high unmet need for family planning in the state
( 18.1% as per NFHS 4), which is much higher than the national average of 13%.
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References
Abeykoon, A. P., Dr. (2011). Sri Lanka’s Success Story in Population Management: A Lesson
for Other Programmes*. Economic Review, 37(3&4), 1-9. Retrieved from
http://www.ihp.lk/publications/docs/Successstory.pdf
Government of Assam, Health and Family Welfare (A) Department. (n.d.). Draft State
Population Policy, Assam.
Nirmala Buch. (2005). Law of Two-Child Norm in Panchayats: Implications, Consequences and
Experiences. Economic and Political Weekly, 40(24), 2421-2429.
Rao, Mohan. (2003). Two-Child Norm and Panchayats: Many Steps Back. Economic and
Political Weekly 38(33) : 3452-454. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4413903.
Rao, M. (2015). Population Policies and the Two-Child Norm: A Note. Ambedkar University
Delhi, 1-9.
Rizvi, N. (2014, March 19). Successful family planning in Bangladesh. Retrieved from
https://www.dandc.eu/en/article/successful-family-planning-bangladesh-holistic-
approach-leads-lower-fertility-rates-rates
Shiva Kumar A.K. (2010) Population and Human Development. Contemporary Concerns.
Handbook on Population and Development. Oxford University Press.
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