The United Nations latest report, “Population Prospects” forecasts that India will surpass China’s population by 2023, reaching 1.5 billion by 2030 and 1.66 billion by 2050. It was only three years ago that the UN Population Prospects (2019) projected that India will surpass China’s population by 2027. But it seems that the rate of growth of India’s population is faster than that of China, and the global agencies had to change their forecast significantly in three years.
Every country intends for its people to be prosperous and frames policies to attain this goal. China’s story since 1978 is unique – the country has achieved the fastest decline in poverty and is today a superpower, perhaps, second only to the US. Its experiences hold some important lessons for India, especially because in 1978, when China embarked on its economic reforms, its per capita income at $156.4 was way below that of India at $205.7. Both countries were saddled with humongous poverty. Today, China is more than six times ahead of India in terms of per capita income – China’s per capita income in 2021 was $12,556, while that of India was $1,933 in 2020. It is this economic prosperity that has enabled China to spend large amounts on building its military might.
How did China do all this? It is well known that China started its economic reforms in 1978 with a primary focus on agriculture. It broke away from the commune system and liberated agri-markets from myriad controls. As a result, during 1978-84, China’s agri-GDP grew by 7.1 per cent per annum and farmers’ real incomes grew by 14 per cent per annum with the liberalisation of agri-prices. As people gained prosperity and farmers’ real incomes doubled, poverty fell by half in just six years. Enhanced incomes of rural people created a huge demand for industrial products, and also gave political legitimacy for pushing further the reform agenda. The aim of China’s manufacturing through Town and Village Enterprises (TVEs) was basically to meet the surging demand from the hinterlands. The rest is history.
But one important policy during this period that is not talked about much was the one-child policy. China introduced the one-child per family policy in September 1980, which lasted till early 2016. It is this strict control on population growth, coupled with booming growth in overall GDP over these years, that led to a rapid increase in per capita incomes. Chinese population growth today is just 0.1 per cent per annum compared to India’s 1.1 per cent per annum. India’s overall growth story – though one of reasonable success — has not been as impressive as that of China, certainly not in agriculture. Over a 40-year period, 1978-2018, China’s agriculture has grown at 4.5 per cent per annum while India’s agri-GDP growth ever since reforms began in 1991 has hovered at around 3 per cent per annum. Market and price liberalisation in agriculture still remains a major issue, and at the drop of any hint of food price rise, the government clamps down exports, imposes stock limits on traders, suspends futures markets, and pushes other measures that strangle markets. The net result of all this is reflected in the “implicit taxation” of farmers to favour the vocal lobby of consumers, especially the urban middle class.
Let’s get back to the population story, and try to understand what India can do at this juncture. There is no way India can impose the one-child norm that China did in 1980. After Sanjay Gandhi’s forceful attempts to control population through sterilisation methods in the early 1970s, and the people’s discontent against it, no government is going to attempt it. The only way is through effective education, especially that of the girl child, open discussion and dialogue about family planning methods and conversations about the benefits of small family size in society. The record on that front is not very good.
As per the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-21), of all the girls and women above the age of 6 years, only 16.6 per cent were educated for 12 years or more. If one talks of the quality of education, several ASER reports point to the poor quality of education. In our earlier research, based on unit-level data of NFHS, we found that women’s education is the most critical determinant of the status of malnutrition amongst children below the age of five. The NFHS-5 data shows that more than 35 per cent of our children below the age of five are stunted, which means their earning capacity will remain hampered throughout life. They will remain stuck in a low-level income trap. Moreover, 57 per cent of women in the reproductive age group of 15-49, are anaemic, as per NFHS-5 (2019-21), up from 53 per cent in NFHS-4 (2015-16). With this dismal status of women’s health and education, the future of children in India is a serious issue to ponder over.
Biofortification of staples, supplying clean and safe drinking water to every household (nal se jal) and mid-day meals are all steps in the right direction to improve the well-being of people. But unless a focused and aggressive campaign is launched to educate the girl child and provide her with more than 12 years of good quality education, India’s performance in terms of the prosperity of its masses, and the human development index may not improve significantly for many more years to come. From a policy perspective, if there is any subsidy that deserves priority, it should be for the education of the girl child. If the Modi government can take up this cause in sync with state governments, this will significantly boost the labour participation rate of women, which is currently at a meagre 25 per cent, and lead to “double engine” growth. This policy focus can surely bring a rich harvest, politically and economically, for many years to come.
The writer is Infosys Chair Professor for Agriculture at ICRIER
