Sunday, 21 Jun, 2026
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India’s next demographic challenge is no longer educating women it is ensuring marriage does not end their careers. Until more women stay in paid work after marriage and motherhood, the economy will continue to underuse a vital source of talent
India’s fertility rate has slipped below the replacement level. Preliminary results from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2023-24 put the country’s total fertility rate (TFR) at 2.0 children per woman, while the Sample Registration System estimated it even lower at 1.9 in 2024. The numbers have triggered predictable anxiety about an ageing society and a shrinking workforce.
But the debate risks focusing on the wrong problem.
Falling fertility is no longer an Indian exception. Birth rates have declined across much of the world over the past decade as countries have urbanised, incomes have risen and families have become smaller. What makes India unusual is something else entirely. Fertility has fallen even though female labour force participation remains among the lowest for a major economy—about 40%, compared with well over 50% globally.
That appears to challenge the conventional belief that women have fewer children only after they enter the workforce in large numbers. India's experience suggests the relationship is far more complex. The country's demographic transition is being shaped not by women’s careers but by marriage, social expectations and the unequal burden of unpaid work.
The marriage penalty
Economists often speak of the “motherhood penalty”— the career setback women suffer after having children. India has a different problem. Here, the biggest setback begins with marriage.
Long before childcare enters the picture, many women withdraw from paid work because marriage brings new domestic responsibilities, elder care obligations and, frequently, relocation to the husband's household, often in another town or city.
The imbalance is stark. India's Time Use Survey shows that married women spend more than five hours every day on unpaid domestic work and another hour on caregiving. Married men spend less than an hour on both activities combined.
The economic consequences are equally striking. A 2024 World Bank study found that marriage reduces labour force participation among Indian women by 12 percentage points on average. Having a child lowers participation by another four percentage points. In other words, most women leave the labour market at marriage rather than motherhood.
This matters because marriage in India remains almost universal. According to NFHS 2019-21, only 1% of women and 3% of men remain unmarried by the age of 45-49. Women also marry young. The median age at first marriage is 18.9 years, while the median age at first childbirth is 21.2 years.
Education postpones both events, but only marginally. Women with at least 12 years of schooling marry and become mothers roughly three years later than the national average. Even then, they have their first child nearly a decade earlier than women in many advanced economies, where first births typically occur around the age of 29 or 30.
The cost of interrupted careers
Early marriage disrupts careers before they have a chance to develop.
Research by economist Ashwini Deshpande shows that Indian women move in and out of the labour market repeatedly as they try to balance paid employment with family responsibilities. Many eventually gravitate towards informal work or gig jobs because they offer flexibility, even if they also mean lower wages, fewer benefits and weaker legal protection.
Employers notice these interruptions. Women with fragmented work histories are often seen as less reliable hires, creating a vicious cycle in which career breaks reduce future employment opportunities.
The Covid-19 pandemic exposed this vulnerability. According to the State of Working India Report 2021, 47% of working women lost their jobs during the lockdown compared with only 7% of working men.
Why families want fewer children
Marriage may remain socially expected and parenthood almost compulsory, but raising children has become far more expensive.
Parents increasingly aspire to provide better education, healthcare and opportunities for their children. The spread of smartphones, the internet and social media has broadened these aspirations well beyond metropolitan India. Whether in cities or villages, families now want to invest more in each child.
Having fewer children has become the simplest way to achieve that goal.
Decades of government campaigns promoting smaller families have also left a lasting imprint. The message that families should stop at one or two children appears to have succeeded across income groups and educational backgrounds.
The decline in fertility, therefore, reflects rational choices made within difficult social constraints rather than a sudden rejection of parenthood.
Lessons from Sweden
Countries that have managed to stabilise fertility rates offer an important lesson: money alone does not persuade people to have more children.
Sweden recognised this decades ago. It introduced paternity leave in 1974 and gradually expanded paid parental leave, subsidised childcare and other family-friendly policies that allowed women to continue working after becoming mothers.
The outcome was striking. By 1990, female labour force participation had climbed to 83.4%, while fertility recovered above the replacement level.
The Swedish model was expensive. Public spending on family benefits consistently amounted to 3-4% of GDP. India is unlikely to match that level of investment anytime soon.
The next stage of reform
India has already achieved remarkable progress in girls’ education and reducing fertility. The next challenge is ensuring that educated women do not disappear from the workforce after marriage.
Policies that subsidise reskilling for mothers returning to work, expand flexible formal-sector jobs and strengthen childcare and elder-care services would help women remain economically active. The country’s flagship slogan may also need to evolve — from Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao to Beti Ko Kaam Dilao.
India’s falling fertility rate is not the disease. It is the symptom.
The deeper challenge lies in a society and labour market that still make women choose between family and work. Until that changes, birth rates are unlikely to recover in any meaningful way. More importantly, India will continue to waste one of its greatest economic strengths—the productive potential of millions of educated women.
