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Indian Express
13 hours ago
- Health
- Indian Express
IVF debt, insecurity and judgment: The one-sided costs that women bear for ‘feritlity'
As the United Nations Population Fund's (UNFPA) State of World Population report for 2025 shows a significant decline in India's fertility rate — dropping to 1.9 births per woman — the guilt of a childless future has been quietly passed on to the woman. Most conversations ever since have centred on what's going wrong in the woman's body, her hormones, her eggs, her infertility or why she can't summon up enough resilience to ensure no societal expectation is unmet. The fact is, no matter how much we commit to parity and equity, motherhood continues to be the only recognition of a woman's completeness. Look up any achiever's name — CEO, founder, business leader, inventor, sportswoman, banker, investor — and they all come with the suffix, 'also a mother to so and so.' As if every accomplishment falls short if one didn't pass the motherhood test. Great, if she did it despite it. Ambitious and careerist, if she did it without it. A childless woman is asked every day why she 'couldn't have' a baby when it could well be that she 'didn't want' one in the first place. This allusion to motherhood as a societal duty rather than individual choice is the reason that successful women are queuing up at IVF clinics and egg freezing centres, even willing to take loans to continue their treatments. Many of them are trapped in what is being called 'IVF debt'. The procedure itself has a success rate of 40 per cent per cycle if you are under 35, but they are still willing to bet on it. Nobody even talks about the physical pain involved. In our cultural narrative, women, after all, are expected to be selfless and sacrificing when it comes to continuing the bloodline in a tactical transference of responsibility. Here are some hard facts. Infertility isn't only because women have poor health and hectic lifestyles; men are going through the same, minus the guilt. Men are always assumed to be virile, and women are automatically assumed to be infertile. Men are as enthusiastic about fatherhood as women are about motherhood. Yet there is no prejudice against a childless man. That is reserved rather harshly for women. Young women are far more informed and aware of the toll their work and home environment is taking on them, and are keen to freeze their eggs. But is it cost-effective enough? With costs ranging between ₹1,50,000 to ₹2,50,000 per cycle and doctors telling them it's best to freeze their eggs by 29, a young woman has to battle a dilemma. Should she still gamble on natural conception, or should she, with no savings in a career that has just begun, borrow the money for the greater good? Assisted reproductive technologies may be changing the face of parenthood, but only in cities. Accessibility is still an issue in the hinterland. There may be public schemes on women's health, but funding for crucial research on their reproductive health is all but paltry. Besides, women are rarely made part of clinical trials and research studies. Economics layers every decision and agency to have a child. Women aren't always averse to having a child, but do they have the right partner to build a safe environment for raising a family or have pockets deep enough to go it alone till the child's college years? Even if she uses donor sperm, will the single mother be spared societal judgment of attempting a family in isolation? Nobody even dares to discuss parental desires of non-binary people and facilitating their baby journeys. And for all the well-meaning advisories on adoption, women hoping to be a single parent have to navigate a dark maze of legalese, scrutiny and most importantly, finances. As for healthy women of childbearing age, delaying a family is often not a matter of choice but forced by circumstance. Most women delay births because they get offloaded mid-career or are denied the promotion that could get them out of middle management into leadership roles, the moment they seek work-life balance norms. In a dynamic world, workplace inflexibility continues to be a decelerator for women. With societal complexities, stigma of childlessness and their own performance anxiety weighing down on them, many women are developing mental health conditions. These begin with stress, anxiety, depression and eventually a burnout. And as they wrestle with their private grief of childlessness, nothing prepares them for the public spectacle of their insufficiencies. This imposed guilt is nothing but a new-age tool of gendered oppression, one that creates another hurdle for a woman to cross in her quest for equity. However, women must not slip into victimhood. Instead, one has to look at the many childless women who make excellent grandmas, aunts, and caregivers, caring for the young in their families. Childlessness doesn't automatically translate to a lack of maternal instincts. If anything, non-parenting women can raise the community's children with an all-new neutral perspective. As author Maya Angelou says, 'If our children are to approve of themselves, they must see that we approve of ourselves.'
Spectator
3 days ago
- General
- Spectator
The real reason birth rates are falling
Last week the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) released its State of World Population report. According to the Guardian: 'Millions of people are prevented from having the number of children they want by a toxic mix of economic barriers and sexism, a new UN report has warned.' Dr Natalia Kanem, executive director of UNFPA, said: 'The answer lies in responding to what people say they need: paid family leave, affordable fertility care and supportive partners.' Nonsense, of course. Does Africa (4.1 births per woman) have better family leave and fertility care and more supportive partners than Sweden (1.4)? The reason for UNFPA's counter-intuitive findings is simple. They have not 'found' (the word almost every report uses) the reasons people don't have babies. They've found the reasons people say they're not having babies. People say all kinds of things. Against a background of concern at low fertility, and asked why they're not contributing more to maintaining population numbers, most people are unlikely to reply: 'Because babies are hard work, and restrict my freedom to live the life of my choice.' Of course they won't! 'I don't want children' sounds selfish. They'll instead say that they'd like to have more children, but for one reason or another beyond their control are prevented from having a bigger family. Even taking that into account, I note from the figures for respondents' answers to the survey's core questions that only one in five said they expected to have fewer children than they'd like. 'What they'd like' is key. Face it. Modern couples are making a lifestyle choice in curbing procreation. Babies are thoroughly inconvenient. Pets (say reports) are substituting for children as they're less trouble. Dog ownership is increasing. I doubt that the science of polling could provide the honest answers we need, but I'll take an intuitive stab at 'explaining' why the 21st-century world is having fewer children. Birth rates are falling not (pace UNFPA) because people feel less free to have bigger families, but because they feel more free not to. And it's women I'm mostly talking about. The reason for falling birth rates is the emancipation of women. Those thousands of years when hearth, home and motherhood were the limits of what a young woman could aspire to are gone. The cultural blocks on careers for women are being lifted, and that's a good thing. But it has consequences. Even after making every effort to harmonise career with reproduction, even after nudging men into sharing domestic duties, after extending maternity and paternity leave (480 days in Sweden) and penalising employers for discriminating against mothers who interrupt work to care for babies, after state help with nurseries and daycare centres and the financial incentives some countries are now offering for having more children, even after all that, modern women want a life beyond the front door. This is especially so for younger women starting out on a career. Later, with more seniority in the workplace, can come more flexibility and power to dictate terms. This is surely one reason professionally successful modern women now choose motherhood towards the end of the female reproductive lifespan. My mother was in her early twenties when her firstborn (me) came along. This allowed time for another five children, regularly puncturing the possibilities of career. This is backed up by a stubborn failure to reverse fertility trends through governmental attempts to incentivise childbirth. South Korea, Hungary and France have offered families a shedload of goodies – tax breaks and bounties of every kind – to grow. The effects have been negligible. The doubling of available talent for the modern economy must be vastly beneficial both to productivity and the sum of human happiness, but it doesn't encourage procreation. Why, though, do UNFPA and a host of other official voices call falling birth rates a crisis? It's only about ten minutes since world overpopulation, not underpopulation, was the popular cause for anxiety. Economists may answer that low birth rates mean either a contracting young workforce to support expanding numbers of an ageing population, or the continuous importation of young immigrant workers to fill the gap. True enough. But more babies mean – in the end – more oldies; and so do more immigrants, after a time lag. We can't indefinitely keep shovelling more births and more immigrants into the economy to feed a (consequentially) swelling care sector. If, then, we cannot fuel economic growth through babies and migrants, why assume we should be trying to grow the size of the economy in the first place? Let the country face a deficit of workers until employers pay more to bring more of the native population into gainful employment; let the increase in longevity level off, as it is doing. With later retirement, we could stabilise the proportions of contributors and beneficiaries and distribute the spoils of increased productivity among fewer people than if we carry on sucking in immigrants or succeed in cranking out more babies. Of course, if world birth rates stayed below 2.1, humankind would eventually become extinct. But that's for generations hence to ponder. For our own, there is no shortage of people – quite the reverse. And the fewer of us there are, the greater for each will be our share; and the more easily we could halt the despoilation of the planet. The world might become a nicer place to bring children into. My thinking here is not new, and has been argued more capably by others for decades, but the current panic about depopulation, the suspect underlying premise that more people means more for each of them, and the political mantra that everything must depend upon 'growth', prompt me to pose again some very big questions.
Mint
14-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
India's declining fertility threatens China-like demographic crisis, says Sanjeev Sanyal
Next Story Business News/ News / India's declining fertility threatens China-like demographic crisis, says Sanjeev Sanyal Rhik Kundu , Utpal Bhaskar The fertility decline is no longer limited to the southern states but has emerged as a nationwide trend, with the country's total fertility rate dropping below the replacement level across several regions, Sanyal tells Mint in an interview. Sanjeev Sanyal, member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, said India needs to abandon population control as the nation faces a decline in fertility. Gift this article New Delhi: India needs to abandon population control as the nation faces a decline in fertility that mirrors the demographic crisis unfolding across China and other East Asian economies, warns Sanjeev Sanyal, member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. New Delhi: India needs to abandon population control as the nation faces a decline in fertility that mirrors the demographic crisis unfolding across China and other East Asian economies, warns Sanjeev Sanyal, member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. The decline in fertility is no longer limited to the southern states but has emerged as a nationwide trend, with the country's total fertility rate (TFR) dropping below the replacement level across several regions, Sanyal told Mint in an interview. India, according to him, is now entering the same demographic transition zone that has challenged countries such as China, Japan and South Korea. 'If it weren't for Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, we would be well below the replacement rate. Even now, we are already below replacement levels, and without those states, the situation would be far worse," he said. 'This is a serious national concern that requires urgent attention." Also read: Demand for MNREGS jobs up, but may decline soon The total fertility rate in India, the world's most populous country, has declined to 1.9 births per woman, falling below the replacement level of 2.1, according to the latest UNFPA's 2025 State of World Population report. Political leaders in the southern states have begun advocating for policy incentives, such as tax breaks, cash benefits and childcare support to encourage larger families. 'Oddly enough, we still have population control departments operating across the country. These are outdated and must be shut down, even in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh," Sanyal said. 'Not only are birth rates declining in those states, too, but we are increasingly reliant on them to keep our national fertility levels at a reasonable threshold." According to Sanyal, India's population peaked in annual births nearly 15 years ago, and declining student numbers, especially in southern and Himalayan states, are now forcing schools to shut, making the old notion of a population explosion increasingly outdated. 'Whenever I mention school closures, it tends to trigger emotional responses. But the reality is, in many regions, now more than half the country, schools simply don't have enough children to remain viable," he said. 'Classrooms are shrinking, and resources are being spread thin." 'Do not attempt blanket AI regulation' Even as artificial intelligence (AI) disrupts businesses, jobs and society, Sanyal is against the global push for blanket AI regulation, arguing that a one-size-fits-all approach would stifle innovation. As governments around the world grapple with how to regulate AI, Sanyal said two dominant models have emerged. The American model leans toward self-regulation, with companies largely free to innovate while the state intervenes only when problems surface. This system, he argues, allows for faster technological progress and market-driven adaptation. In contrast, the European model seeks to regulate AI preemptively, relying on bureaucrats to forecast potential harms and impose safeguards in advance. India should strike a balance between enabling innovation and ensuring responsible deployment, a regulatory philosophy that diverges from the sweeping frameworks being explored in the European Union and elsewhere, he said. 'In India's case, I have proposed a completely different model — one that comes with its own trade-offs. My suggestion is: do not attempt a universal AI regulation. Instead, deliberately compartmentalize AI systems from the outset," Sanyal said. 'There should be strict silos—for example, the AI that runs banking systems must be completely disconnected from the AI running satellites or the electricity grid," he added. In a research paper last year, Sanyal proposed a flexible AI regulatory framework, calling for a specialist regulator, a national algorithm registry, and a centralized repository to drive innovation. Co-authored with Pranav Sharma and Chirag Dudani, the paper outlined a model based on complex adaptive systems, emphasizing responsive, evolving oversight over rigid controls. This includes five key principles, which include setting guardrails to contain harmful AI behaviour and ensuring manual overrides and chokepoints to keep critical infrastructure under human control. In the paper, Sanyal argues that AI regulation must adapt in real-time, not rely on static rulebooks. 'So, my first recommendation is to create hard boundaries between AI systems, even if that causes some inefficiency. Everything does not need to be connected to everything else," he said. 'Second, there must be legal requirements for human overrides at every critical control point. And third, and most important, we must institute explainability audits." Topics You May Be Interested In Stay updated with the latest Trending, India , World and United States news. Get breaking news and key updates here on Mint!
Indian Express
12-06-2025
- General
- Indian Express
Knowledge Nugget: UNFPA State of World Population Report 2025 – Must-know insights for UPSC
Take a look at the essential concepts, terms, quotes, or phenomena every day and brush up your knowledge. Here's your knowledge nugget for today. (Relevance: UPSC has asked questions on population, government policies to utlise demographic dividends, and key terms associated with it. Check them in the post-read questions. In this regard, understanding the SOWP Report 2025 is important for your UPSC exam.) The 2025 State of World Population (SOWP) Report was released by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). This year's report, 'The real fertility crisis: The pursuit of reproductive agency in a changing world' has called for a shift from panic over falling fertility to addressing unmet reproductive goals. The report draws on academic research and new data from a UNFPA–YouGov survey spanning 14 countries, including India. 1. According to the report, one in three adult Indians (36%) face unintended pregnancies, while 30% experience unfulfilled desire for having either more or fewer children, and 23% face both. 2. SOWP Report 2025 underlines that millions of individuals are unable to realise their real fertility goals. This is the real crisis, not underpopulation or overpopulation. And, the answer lies in greater reproductive agency – a person's ability to make free and informed choices about sex, contraception, and starting a family. 3. One in five people globally expect not to have the number of children they desire. The key drivers include the prohibitive cost of parenthood, job insecurity, housing, concerns over the state of the world, and the lack of a suitable partner. A toxic blend of economic precarity and sexism plays a role in many of these issues, the report shows. 4. In the case of India, financial limitations are one of the biggest barriers to reproductive freedom. Nearly four in 10 people say financial limitations are stopping them from having the families they want. Job insecurity (21%), housing constraints (22%), and the lack of reliable childcare (18%) are making parenthood feel out of reach. 5. Health barriers like poor general well-being (15%), infertility (13%), and limited access to pregnancy-related care (14%) add further strain. Many are also holding back due to growing anxiety about the future—from climate change to political and social instability. 6. According to United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA, 2024), India is now the world's most populous nation, with nearly 1.5 billion people – a number expected to grow to about 1.7 billion before it begins falling, around 40 years from now. Why is it called UNFPA? High fertility and low fertility duality case of India 1. Replacement-level fertility is commonly defined as 2.1 births per woman, which is the rate at which a population size remains the same from one generation to the next. India has reached the replacement-level fertility of 2.0, but the report pointed out that many people, especially women, still face significant barriers to making free and informed decisions about their reproductive lives and significant disparities persist across regions and states. These barriers create what the report identifies as India's 'high fertility and low fertility duality.' 2. Fertility has fallen below the replacement level (2.1) in 31 states/UTs, but remains high in Bihar (3.0), Meghalaya (2.9), and Uttar Pradesh (2.7). Urban-rural gaps persist, and seven states have yet to reach replacement TFR in rural areas. In Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Delhi, many couples delay or skip childbirth due to costs and work-life conflict, especially among educated middle-class women. This duality reflects differences in economic opportunities, access to healthcare, education levels, and prevailing gender and social norms. Issue of Infertility in India The report highlighted that Infertility remains under-prioritised in India. Infertility needs to be considered for inclusion under the government's health insurance schemes, as suggested in the report. An estimated 27.5 million Indian couples face infertility, yet public sector services are limited, while private care remains expensive and largely confined to urban centres. 📍Positive Growth of Population: When the birth rate is more than the death rate between two points of time or when people from other countries migrate permanently to a region, it is called positive growth of population. 📍Negative Growth of Population: When there is a decrease in population between two points of time due to a fall in birth rate below the death rate or people migrate to other countries, it is called negative growth of population. 📍Density of Population: The number of persons per unit area is called the density of population. According to the 2011 Census, India's population density is 382 persons per square kilometer, and in states, Bihar has the highest density at 1106 persons per square kilometer. In 1951, it was 117 persons/sq km. What is the demographic dividend? FYI: The dependency ratio is equal to the population below 15 or above 64, divided by the population in the 15-64 age group. This is usually expressed as a percentage. The working-age population is generally defined as those aged 15-64 years. 📍Period of population explosion: The sudden increase in the population of the country is called a population explosion. In India, the decade of 1951-1981 is referred to as the period of population explosion. During this period, the average annual growth rate was as high as 2.2 percent. 📍Fertility Rate: The fertility rate refers to the number of live births per 1000 women in the child-bearing age group, usually taken to be 15 to 49 years. Total fertility rate (TFR) 📍Total Fertility Rate (TFR): According to the website of OECD, the total fertility rate in a specific year is defined as the total number of children that would be born to each woman if she were to live to the end of her child-bearing years and give birth to children in alignment with the prevailing age-specific fertility rates (1) The total fertility rate in an economy is defined as: (UPSC CSE 2024) (a) the number of children born per 1000 people in the population in a year. (b) the number of children born to couple in their lifetime in a given population. (c) the birth rate minus death rate. (d) the average number of live births a woman would have by the end of her child-bearing age. (2) India is regarded as a country with 'Demographic Dividend''. This is due to– (UPSC CSE 2011) (a) Its high population in the age group below 15 years. (b) Its high population in the age group of 15-64 years. (c) Its high population in the age group above 65 years. (d) Its high total population. (Source: NCERT, 'Millions unable to realise reproductive goals': UNFPA State of World Population Report 2025 reveals crisis of fertility aspirations, India becomes world's most populous nation: What's behind the population numbers?) Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter. Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X. 🚨 Click Here to read the UPSC Essentials magazine for May 2025. Share your views and suggestions in the comment box or at Khushboo Kumari is a Deputy Copy Editor with The Indian Express. She has done her graduation and post-graduation in History from the University of Delhi. At The Indian Express, she writes for the UPSC section. She holds experience in UPSC-related content development. You can contact her via email: ... Read More
Mint
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Mint
India's falling fertility rate calls for fast-improving gender justice
The State of World Population report for 2025, published by a UN agency, notes that India's total fertility rate (TFR) has dipped below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman of child-bearing age. It is now 1.9 for the country as a whole, with wide regional variation. India's National Family Health Survey of 2019-2021 had placed our TFR at 2.0. What makes the UN report noteworthy is its emphasis on social factors that influence fertility. It focuses on reproductive agency as understood in a societal context, and that is welcome. Its call for the full realization of reproductive rights should draw our attention to gender justice, which is a vital aspect of diversity, equity and inclusion. Also Read: Gender and Age: We need a female perspective on ageing populations Globally, a fertility boom in the second half of the 20th century led to widespread fears of a population explosion. Religious conservatives in the US worried about populations elsewhere growing too fast for anyone's good and funded family planning and population-control measures in Asia and Africa. Development economists worried about economic gains being outrun by an expanding pool of claimants to the fruits of growth. These concerns linger in the unreformed world-views of many, including many of those who wield political power. Meanwhile, many people in the rich world seem obsessed with a population implosion—a crisis of not enough children being born. This anxiety is partly on account of the immigration needed to keep economies in expansion mode. The wave of anti-immigrant sentiment sweeping large swathes of the West, from the US to Europe, where xenophobic politics has been on the rise, can partly be attributed to fears of being outnumbered by people who do not look like Westerners. Also Read: Population decline is not a problem but hungry kids are It is in this context that the UN report makes an important assertion: that the key problem—or the 'real fertility crisis"—is neither a population explosion nor implosion, but unrealized reproductive rights in relatively poor and well-off societies alike. Getting rich need not enhance reproductive autonomy. South Korea offers an illustrative example of this. The country has a TFR of 0.8, as many Korean women eschew motherhood and marriage in protest against gender-unjust attitudes that impose all household chores and care burdens on women, who often lack financial security and childcare support. Here, the issue is not access to contraception or abortion rights as much as social mores that sustain gender oppression, leaving women to resist the patriarchy by opting not to have children at all. Also Read: Pet paranoia and anti-immigrant rants reveal economic myopia In India, attitudes vary widely with income status, social-group norms and the level of women's empowerment in varied settings. While India has many women with successful professional careers, this owes less to supportive partners sharing traditional housework and more to their ability to shift some of the burden to paid domestic help, offered typically by women who earn to keep kitchen stoves alight. This model, though, is not sustainable. As incomes rise at the bottom of the pyramid, outsourcing domestic chores and care for the young and old could become prohibitively expensive. In other words, true economic success—with its bounty reaching every socioeconomic strata—could leave India staring at a South Korean fertility future in a few decades. To avert such an outcome, we must push for societal changes now. Gender equality needs to begin at home. And if that means leaving hoary old traditions behind, we should.
