Why Indian families are having only one child - YouTube

Pallavi and Rajeev are working professionals, and are parents to an only child Vidita.

They’ve shared that both sides of the family are expecting them to have another child.

But they respond with - one is enough.

But why?

Pallavi says, "neither of us has ancestral property or family wealth.

We're living on our earnings. And we want to give Vidhi the best without making any compromise."

Rajeev added, “ten years ago we'd probably have worried that she would be lonely.”

But now the concept of ‘only-child’ has become common in India.

Rajeev has got a point.

A 2011 study indicated that close to 10% of Indian households now opt for only one child.

We should keep in mind that this growing trend is more prominent in urban India.

A research showed that the share of one-child families in India is 5%,

but they form almost 13% of the families in metro cities.

Why do so many urban families want to raise a single child?

How will this trend impact our society?

This is what we’ll discuss in this video.

Sonalde Desai, a sociology professor, first noticed the trend of one-child families a decade ago.

She says, "I was surprised to see the number of people I saw around me with a single child in the US

and wondered if the same processes might be operating in India.”

Afterward, Desai co-authored a research paper with Alka Basu and tried to understand this trend in India.

Basu and Desai suggest that it could be due to three reasons.

First, as we explained in the introduction – parents want the best for their children.

Basu and Desai state that in the US, the parents opting for a single child so that they get more time on their career.

But the key reason in India isn’t the professional career of the parents.

But the parents want to give the best opportunities to their single child.

Child counselor Sunayna Chatterjee adds, “single kids generally excel in whatever they do

because of the undivided attention and financial resource for better education.”

The trend currently seen in India was observed a few years ago in East Asian countries such as China.

It led to an increased desire to invest in children and reduced fertility.

Desai and Basu suggest that children from one-child families are 50% more likely to be in a private school

as compared to children from 3+ child families.

The second reason could be the rising expenses of education.

The cost of raising a child is another reason why only 24% of women are willing for a second child.

According to the Economic Times 2011-study,

the cost incurred by middle-class parents in raising a child from infancy to college 21 years was estimated to be around 55 lakhs.

And 46% of this cost is of education,

According to an HSBC report, 89% of Indian parents are willing to 'make sacrifices' for their children's education.

Apart from the cost of private schools and tuition, the job market of India has also become competitive.

That’s why parents don’t want to raise another child.

For example, according to Linkedin, the competition among professionals for jobs was 30% higher in 2020 than in 2019.

And due to the pandemic, the Indian job market has been divided into two different categories

- first are those job seekers who have tech skills.

And due to COVID, their demand has significantly increased.

But on the other side are those who are finding it challenging to find a job,

a key reason is that their skills don't match with this increasingly digital world.

Pankaj Bansal, co-founder of HR consultancy firm says “This is the new world of work. Job seekers must prepare for it".

Back to the video.

The third reason behind the boom of single-child families is the economic development in India,

which gives several options to people to spend their money on.

People can travel within India or outside India.

They can try out new activities.

And they have the liberty to work abroad.

These factors affect parents’ decision of having 2nd child.

If both the parents have day jobs, it becomes a deciding factor too.

Basu and Desai say that when the value of leisure increases,

the value of children diminishes compared to the value of other things

such as consumption, leisure or labor force participation".

But let's be clear.

These three reasons largely apply to urban India. Not rural.

The decrease in fertility in rural India is due to the government’s family planning programs.

(“Keep a gap between the birth of two children.”)

(“After marriage, first try to understand each other before making any addition to the family.”)

(“Family planning is important for the health of the wife and the child.”)

Let's discuss the consequences and long-term impact of one-child families.

The policy experts and government officials fear that single-child families will impact Indian society as well as the economy.

The fear is valid.

“India will grow old before it becomes rich.”

This is exactly what was observed in China.

We all are aware of the 'One-child policy' in China which was operational from 1979 to 2016.

This policy played a key role in reducing China's fertility.

And now China is facing its deadly consequences because its population is shrinking and aging.

You can see in this visualization - both India and China's population was thicker at the bottom

i.e. the population was much younger and by 2050, it will become thicker at the top

i.e. the populations will get older.

Due to the rise in the population of elders, the country has to face two problems:

First, invest a lot in healthcare costs.

Second, there won’t be enough young people who would fund the costs and contribute to the local economy.

The declining young population is the major reason for the local Chinese government to promote campaigns

such as “1,001 reasons to have a baby”.

In fact, an article in the state-run People’s Daily said:

“The birth of a baby is not only a matter of the family itself but also a state affair.”

In such an environment, raising kids becomes especially difficult for young couples.

According to Jacques deLisle, a Management professor at the University of Pennsylvania,

the younger generation would have to bear the responsibility of looking after aging parents but also kids.

Some policymakers call it the "double burden".

The burdens faced by the parents are the financial and mental stress of getting their children educated.

We spoke about it in a recent video, where we discussed how the Chinese government

brought changes in the education sector to solve this problem.

Recently, they banned for-profit tutoring.

It means that you can only offer tutoring out of charity.

And similar fears exist in India too.

Let’s try to summarise the argument.

Education is getting expensive and competitive,

so young parents don't want to have many kids because they have their parents to take care of too.

This means that on average, the population is getting older.

So the government is worried that India would become old before it becomes rich.

And due to this the demographic dividend, about which we have been learning since school, would be wasted.

In such an environment, it is almost illogical that some states are passing two-child policies.

Because India's fertility across all states and religions is decreasing.

You can see in this chart that the fertility rate has fallen for most states from 2015 to 2019.

And a similar drop was observed across all religions.

The policies created by many state governments are inefficient.

What’s efficient is women empowerment and increased access to family planning programs in villages.

So then what are the solutions for this?

One is clearly reducing the stress related to education to promote parents to have children.

This could be done by building more schools and colleges to reduce competition,

increasing the quality of schooling, and reducing the importance of exams,

which the new education policy hopes to achieve.

The government could also reduce the pressure from the job market.

There could be a common solution to both the issues -

aligning the curriculum of institutes with the industry expectations.

In that process, private companies can play an important role.

There is one silver lining to these problems – women’s empowerment in society.

Basu and Desai showed in their research paper that 40% of the families with single-child had a daughter.

In Indian society - a daughter is considered to be an outlander and a son is expected to take care of his aging parents.

As the number of single-child families increases, this responsibility will also be given to women,

making our society equal.

That could happen with Pallavi and Rajiv.

And to counter the negative impacts of single-child families, the government needs to be prepared in advance.