New Delhi: Space X CEO Elon Musk on Saturday said that India’s birth rate has fallen below the replacement level. He took to social media platform, ‘X’,
to share a post and a study by a media group, AF Post, regarding the declining fertility rate in India.
In his post, Musk said, “India’s birth rate has fallen below replacement. Among those most educated, India’s birth rate fell below replacement many years ago.”
India’s birth rate has fallen below replacement.
Among those most educated, India’s birth rate fell below replacement many years ago. https://t.co/RsWf0PK6wx
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 6, 2026
The Space X CEO also shared the study by AF Post. According to the study, India’s fertility rate has fallen below replacement for the first time in the country’s history, declining from a TFR of 2.3 to 1.9 in just a decade. According to the study, Delhi’s fertility rate which is now 1.2 is lower than that of Finland.
To back up its claim on the falling fertility rate, the media outlet, quoted a study by economist.com. According to this study, though India surpassed China as the most populous country in the world in 2023 itself, its total fertility rate (TFR), the number of births a typical woman has over her lifetime, has fallen to 1.9, below the level needed to keep the population stable in the long run.
The Economist article was titled, ‘India’s population will soon be falling—probably quite fast’. According to the article, the population of India would keep rising for a particular period of time, as the generation that are currently children themselves become parents, a future contraction is inevitable.
According to a United Nations report published in 2025, India’s total fertility rate had declined to 1.9 births per woman. This was below the replacement level of 2.1. This means that an average Indian woman is having fewer children than they are required to have to maintain population size from one generation to next, without migration.
A report in PTI however highlighted that though India’s fertility rate has declined over the years, India still has a population which is a billion strong. There are also severe gaps in healthcare and maternal mortality and infant mortality are still very high. There is a need to fix the health infrastructure in the country, so that these problems can be addressed.
