Andhra Pradesh Population Policy Falling Fertility Rates

Her anklets chime as she softly carries a tune on board the Hyderabad-Visakhapatnam Vande Bharat. When she is ready to talk, she does it just as casually. “I have PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) and mood swings. I become happy when my uterus is happy and sad when my uterus is sad. I don’t want to bear children,” says S Mounika. “Hush,” says her friend, Ramya, from across the aisle, turning to look at the other passengers who have turned curious about the conversation. The 23-year-olds, both Bsc Computer Science graduates from Visakhapatnam, are on their way home to Pithapuram, in Kakinada district of Andhra Pradesh, after a job interview with a cargo firm in Hyderabad. Like her father, Sharon's husband died of alcoholism, leaving the 18-year-old with a 2-year-old daughter. (Express photo by Nikhila Henry) Mounika goes on, “It’s been three years since I graduated. No job. The Chief Minister should think about creating employment for the youth rather than asking us to have more children.” Read | Andhra Pradesh’s draft population policy: How a shift from ‘population control’ tries to address decline in fertility rates In response to the state’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR or the number of children per adult woman) of 1.4, among the lowest in the country, the Andhra Pradesh government in March introduced a draft Population Management Policy, which aims to encourage families to have two or three children. After announcing Rs 25,000 last year for families that bear a second child, at a public meeting in Narsannapeta, Srikakulam, on May 16, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu rolled out more incentives. “We will provide Rs 30,000 for a third child and Rs 40,000 for a fourth child. Isn’t this the right decision?” The audience of mostly men whistled and clapped. He then turned to where the women sat and said, “What do you think? Isn’t this the right decision?” The video pans to show some of them smiling. Expert Explains | Andhra Pradesh’s effort to improve fertility rate promising, but not enough The demographic and economic argument behind Naidu’s appeal — that a falling birthrate will have long-term consequences for the state’s productivity and strain the government’s finances — may, however, come up against something far more fundamental: women’s autonomy. No where is that expressed with better clarity than in Visakhapatnam — at 1.3, the district with the one of the lowest TFRs in Andhra Pradesh – and few say it as firmly as Mounika. Most women say they don’t want cash incentives for childbirth because bringing up children comes at a cost. (Express photo by Nikhila Henry) The daughter of a lorry driver and a homemaker, she says, “I want a government job, so I am trying to clear the Staff Selection Commission exams. I want to take care of my parents; not sacrifice everything for marriage and children. Someday, I might adopt a girl child, though. Do you think I will get a life partner who thinks like me? I really hope so. Fingers crossed, fingers crossed.” She holds up both her hands, the fingers in a desperate knot. The cost of raising a child In Visakhapatnam’s Appanapalem village, which sits below the famous Simhachalam temple, Papiyamma, 70, talks of a time when having children wasn’t about choice. “Whatever God gave, I accepted. Those days, everyone had four children or more,” says the mother of four, sitting in a room on the terrace of the two-storied house her late husband built, and where she now lives with her children and grandchildren. Those days, she says, few dreamt of lives beyond their village. Papiyamma used to cultivate vegetables on the family’s land, graze cattle and feed her children. She even grew a little tobacco on 10 cents of land. On board the Hyderabad-Visakhapatnam Vande Bharat, S Mounika says she has been without a job since she graduated three years ago. (Express photo by Nikhila Henry) Sitting beside her on the cot, her son Appal Raju, 52, talks of the impact of a government policy from a different time. “I have three children because of my wife’s insistence. But because of that, I was not able to contest the local body elections,” he says. Until 2024, the state’s two-child norm banned people with more than two children from getting elected to public offices. Now, in a reversal of expectations, just when the government wants people to have more children, Raju says his eldest daughter, who got married recently, is clear she won’t have more than one. “She says her husband’s brother and wife too have just one child. What can you do? Children decide on their own nowadays,” he laughs. The family’s fortunes had turned in the early 2000s, when the price of their two-acre family land shot up. With nine grandchildren to bring up, Papiyamma says, the family sold most of the land, except for the little patch surrounding their house. “My sons were farmers, but now, they do nothing. Our lives depend on the fortunes of my grandchildren,” she says. All of them, she says, have studied beyond graduation but none have jobs. “Instead of providing jobs, the CM says have more children. Seems like he is mocking people like us,” she says. Papiyamma, 70, and her son Appal Raju, 52, at their home in Visakhapatnam’s Appanapalem village. “Instead of providing jobs, the CM says have more children,” she says. (Express photo by Nikhila Henry) “Potti prapancham,” says Raju in Telugu, referring to the dogged rat race that his children will have to endure. Since 2018, Naidu has been publicly expressing concern at the state’s declining fertility rates that’s far below that of states such as Bihar (2.5) and Uttar Pradesh (2), and in line with that of its neighbours in the south. While the other southern states have framed the issue in terms of delimitation and the potential impact on their representation in Parliament, Naidu has justified his population policy on economic grounds. In Adavivaram village, L Muthiyalamma, 40, and her neighbours have an economic argument of their own. Bringing up children is no small feat, says the mother of three — two girls and a boy. “Had I not wanted a boy child, I would have stopped with two,” says Muthiyalamma, who sells the coconut she grows, earning less than Rs 100 a day. Her children, she says, are educated enough not to risk multiple pregnancies. “My daughters speak of having one child each, though they are yet to be married. We are dependent entirely on farming and cattle, and they know how expensive it is to bring up children,” says Muthiyalamma. In neighbouring Vijinigiripalem, a group of 15 women sits on the floor of a local temple, discussing children and choice. Swearing by the presiding deity, Lord Hanuman, they say they don’t want cash incentives for childbirth because bringing up children costs a lot. “At least two lakh rupees a year goes into just education and healthcare,” estimates Appalanarasamma, 62, who raised her four daughters, and got them married. She has a counter incentive for the government. “Let Chandrababu Naidu assure us that the firstborns in each family will be given a government job. Then these young girls can consider the offer,” she says. Her friend B Jayalalitha says she raised her three children with her husband’s earnings from his cycle repair shop. “We took loans to educate them up to BTech. I can’t imagine any of them sacrificing so much to bring up their own children,” she says. Her younger neighbour M Shyalama, 32, is a mother of two. “I can’t think of having more children. Ayyo, I have had enough already… My body won’t allow me to raise more children. I am tired all the time.” ‘If I make it alive…’ The Andhra Pradesh government calls its policy, titled Pillale Sampada or ‘Children are Wealth’, a shift — from the earlier population control to population management, “a rights-based approach” that emphasises reproductive health and rights, informed choice, and individual well-being. Officials involved in the policy and Telugu Desam Party leaders pointed to a government note that read, “It is not an initiative to increase the number of children, but an initiative that adopts population care — a rights-based, voluntary framework that enables informed choices.” While calling the draft policy’s emphasis on population management an “important shift”, Professor K S James, former director of the International Institute of Population Studies who is currently at the Centre for Health and Wellbeing at Princeton University, USA, says government population policies often do not address underlying factors for lower fertility rates. “In the West, population drop was caused by a drop in the number of marriages. That’s not the case in India — people are getting married, but late. Here, men and women are struggling to get jobs to secure their future. Any public policy should be aimed at creating jobs which will help young couples to marry and have children as per their choice,” he says. Those working on women’s causes say the policy does not adequately consider its consequences for women’s wellbeing. “There could be women who are forced to bear a child just so the family can receive the incentive. The burden of raising the child will ultimately fall on women, and this is not in line with reproductive choice and autonomy. The government should support women through long-term childcare, stronger health systems, and services that allow them to make free and informed choices,” says Poonam Muttreja, academic and Executive Director at Population Foundation of India. At the government-run King George Hospital, an obstetrician attending to patients in the Out Patient Department says on condition of anonymity, “Women insist on tubectomy after they have one child or two children. All this while, we also have been encouraging this because it is a healthier option for young women.” A senior doctor, however, said there are several women who deliver more than two children at the hospital. “These days, every second pregnancy is a C-section, which costs more than Rs 1 lakh. What will we do with a one-time grant of Rs 30,000 or 40,000?” says one of the women queuing up to meet the doctor. Not far from the hospital, Nehru Nagar, an urban slum in Dondaparthy area of Visakhapatnam city, is bustling — children running around noisily, women playing board games, some cooking inside tiny kitchens. In the melee, stands Shanthi, 36, heavily pregnant, her hands supporting her tired back. She had two children, both girls, in quick succession — a two-year-old and a one-year-old — and is now seven months into her third pregnancy. Sinking into a chair, Shanthi says, “I am happy the government has announced Rs 30,000 for a third child. I will get the money if I make it out of the labour room,” she says. “Tch tch… what are you saying,” says one of the elderly women in the group. “She hardly eats anything. She is always sick”. Shanthi says she decided to have her third child out of “family compulsions”. Her husband’s siblings have one child each. “They got the sterilisation procedures done. Now, the family thinks we should have more children,” she says. Would she consider giving birth to a fourth child? She sits up with a start, “No. I am weak. I cannot do it again”. The other women take over, talking of how child rearing responsibilities are never shared. “We have husbands who are either dead or as good as dead because they just lie around drinking,” says Gauri, 40, adding she had filed a domestic violence case against her husband to make him “mend his ways”. G Revanthi talks of how her husband died of alcoholism and her daughter Sharon’s husband too met with the same end, leaving the 18-year-old with a 2-year-old. As she tries to feed her baby who is perched on her hip, Sharon says, “I cannot think of marrying or giving birth to children again”. Would she want to study further? “Yes, I would like that,” she smiles. There is less of a consensus among a group of women workers of the TDP who have assembled at the party office in Visakhapatnam’s Ramnagar. Jujjuvarupu Hema, 54, says she got a tubectomy done after the birth of her daughter. “After winning the 1994 elections, Chandrababu Naidu garu had announced, ‘One child is enough for us’. “I am such a hard-working member of the TDP that I just informed my husband and got the tubectomy done. Now that the CM is talking about the state’s falling population, I have told my daughter, an MBA graduate, to bear at least three children”. Others quickly step in to disagree. “I am speaking from my experience of having three daughters. We need free education, healthcare and other government plans to support the children we bear. In this day and age, we need at least a house of our own to bring up children,” says Soujanya, another TDP worker. The women cadre raise a rabble as they vie with each other to explain what it takes to raise more children. “There should be some job security,” says B Lalitha. Away from the candour at the party office, TDP’s doctor-turned politician Gottipati Lakshmi takes a more disciplined party line. “What the government is advocating is child planning. It’s futuristic because women are at the centre of the policy. It’s not coercive because the government is clear that the policy is only suggestive.” ‘Children… not on my mind’ At an upscale coffee shop by the sea, politics is not a great starting point for a conversation — certainly not the subject of having more, or any, children. Nitya, 20, a BBA graduate, says, “Children… That’s not on my mind. I’m thinking of studying in Canada and earning a lot before I turn 30. And then, maybe I’ll come back and settle down in Vizag. I’m working to a plan.” For most of them, children are nowhere part of that plan. “My mother suffered a stroke after delivering my third sibling. I don’t want to risk my health or body by bearing more than one child, if at all,” says Nitya, sipping on iced tea. Sitting at an adjoining table are Rohan Shaji and Srisai Bhavya Karri, MBA graduates and friends who are “looking for jobs”. “How can anyone think of raising children without financial security?,” says Shaji. Karri has an idea. “Before framing a policy, why not ask the women what they want?”