As per the recently published National Family Health Survey-5 report, Nagaland’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has declined from 2.74 during NFHS-4 (2014-15) to 1.72 in less than a decade. This is a very serious issue that should be of concern for all rational Nagas. The TFR of a population is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime.
As per the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the UN, the total fertility rate is expressed as the number of children per woman.
The latest NFHS report says that there are only 1.72 children per woman (of reproductive age) in Nagaland.
It is important to distinguish birth rates—which are defined as the number of live births per 1,000 women in the total population—from fertility rates. Fertility rate and birth rate are often used to help determine a country’s replacement rate, which determines if the number of new citizens born each year is higher or lower than the number of citizens who pass away each year.
Nagaland’s latest TFR of 1.72 can be said to be alarming because it is well below the widely accepted ‘replacement fertility rate’ of 2.1 births per woman. Replacement level fertility or ‘replacement fertility rate’ is the total fertility rate—the average number of children born per woman—at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next, without migration. This rate is roughly 2.1 children per woman for most countries, although it may modestly vary with mortality rates.
This means that, at a TFR of 1.72, the next generation of Naga population would be lesser than the current generation. It would require a TFR of 2.1 to replace the population of the current Naga generation by the next.
While ‘overpopulated’ countries like China and India may have reasons to consider a low TFR as an achievement, the same may not be the case for all population groups. A few years ago, the Russian government announced cash incentives to boost the birth rate in that country. In 2020, President Vladimir Putin announced a series of plans to increase the number of children being born in Russia from an average birth rate of under 1.5 per woman to 1.7 within four years.
Closer to home in Mizoram, in 2018, a local church announced cash incentives for couples who have four or more babies. It was reported that the low birth rate among the dominant Mizo tribe has become a matter of concern not only for the Mizo organizations but also for the churches.
In 2021, a Mizoram minister announced a cash incentive of Rs.1 lakh to a living parent with the highest number of children in his constituency to encourage population growth among the demographically small Mizo communities.
Although policies or news of such incentives are unheard of in Nagaland, at least not till now, the recent NFHS report calls for some serious analysis.