Families

“Though some groups are ahead of the others, families have become smaller across all sections of society,” said Shailaja Chandra, former executive director, Jansankhya Sthirata Kosh (population stabilisation fund).

Like in Bangladesh and Indonesia in the 1970s and 1980s, fertility declined in India even in poor, rural areas when more women gained access to modern methods of contraception under government-run campaigns and improved availability of contraceptives services, including methods to space children.

“What India got right was increasing institutional deliveries and providing reversible contraceptive services at the health centre after counselling to women after they had delivered their baby, so a woman could choose when and how many children she wanted to have,” said Chandra.

Providing the basket of contraceptive choices to include mod-