India's Total Fertility Rate Falls Below Replacement Level First Time In History—Why Elon Musk Is Intrigued

For the first time in India's history, the country's Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has fallen to 1.9 children per woman, dropping below the replacement level. The decline signals that India has entered a new phase of development, moving from decades of concern over rapid population growth to shrinking family sizes and possible future labour shortages, The Economist reported⁠. India's rate of 1.9 suggests that, while the population will continue to grow for several decades due to demographic momentum, eventual decline has become increasingly likely unless birth rates recover. In Delhi, where large households once defined community life, the fertility rate has dropped to 1.2, even lower than Finland's, data showed.TFR is the average number of children a woman will have

in her lifetime. A fertility rate of around 2.1 children per woman is generally considered necessary to maintain a stable population in the absence of migration.

What Elon Musk said

The report also drew the attention of tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has often commented on the declining global population. "India’s birth rate has fallen below replacement. Among those most educated, India’s birth rate fell below replacement many years ago," said Musk on X.

Notably, India overtook China as the world's most populous nation in 2023. As recently as 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had warned of a "population explosion".“Population explosion will cause many problems for our future generations. But there is a vigilant section of the public which stops to think, before bringing a child to the world, whether they can do justice to the child, give them all that she or he wants. They have a small family and express their patriotism to the country. Let's learn from them. There is a need of social awareness,” Prime Minister Modi had said.India's population is an estimated 1.47 billion, making it the most populous country in the world. But while the country remains the most populous globally, its yearly growth percentage has steadily slowed down over the last decade.For India, which is long viewed as the symbol of population growth, the figures are a telling story. Demographers attribute the decline to several factors, including rising educational attainment among women, changing aspirations among parents, increasing urbanisation and the growing cost of raising children, according to the report. The United Nations, however, still projects that India's population will continue growing until the 2060s before gradually declining.