Looks like Gujarat has hit the brakes on baby-making. According to a Sample Registration System (SRS) Statistical Report by the Census of India, the state’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has dipped to 1.8, quietly slipping below the national average of 1.9. A silent drop in diaper sales. This report dates back to 2023, but the broader picture points to fertility drop over the past decade.
The report defines TFR as the “average number of children expected to be born per woman during her entire span of reproductive period, assuming age-specific fertility rates remain the same and there is no mortality.” Essentially, it’s the number of children a woman would have in a lifetime — assuming life behaves like a well-written syllabus and everyone shows up for class.
As mentioned earlier, over the past decade, Gujarat has seen the second sharpest drop in fertility among Indian states — a 24% decline between 2011–13 and 2021–23. Delhi led the pack with a 27.8% fall, while Jharkhand came third with 21.4%. Only these three states saw a reduction of more than 20%.
The report also touched upon fall in Gujarat’s Crude Birth Rate (CBR) — the number of live births per 1,000 people per year. Nationally, the CBR slid from 21.6 to 18.9, a 12.5% decline. Gujarat’s drop was steeper — from 22.2 to 18.3 — marking a 17.6% fall. In short, the storks are clocking fewer shifts.
Dr Parth Shah, secretary of the Ahmedabad Obstetrics and Gynecology Society (AOGS), told media outlets that a TFR of 2.1 is considered the replacement level necessary to maintain population stability.
Falling below that level, he said, signals long-term population depletion — a trend now worrying many countries with ageing populations. The reasons, he noted, include delayed marriages, intentional family planning, and a preference for smaller families.
He also pointed out that the average age at childbirth has gone up — from 25–26 years in 2010 to between 28 and 35 years now. Only about 20% of his patients return for a second child, he said, and third-child deliveries are a rarity. “We might see one such patient every two to three months,” he was quoted as saying.
Renu Khanna, director of Sahaj, an NGO working on public health, gender, and rights, was quoted as saying that looking only at large-scale data misses a deeper issue. She observed that most women — rural or urban — still lack sufficient knowledge of reproductive health, let alone clear understanding of family planning. Awareness, she implied, tends to arrive late.
Gujarat’s numbers mirror a broader shift playing out across India — where couples are pressing snooze on parenthood, choosing smaller families, and still finding themselves in the dark when it comes to reproductive health awareness.
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