Costs, careers and choice: Why Indians are having fewer children

Bengaluru, India – Soon after Nidhi Agarwal got married, she and her partner decided not to have children. Nine years later, that’s a decision they still stick by.

“Before marriage, we never discussed kids. We spoke about finances and our career goals,” the 41-year-old, who runs a public relations company in India’s tech capital Bengaluru, said. “After marriage, we did have a conversation about children and both of us felt that we wanted to focus on our careers and build companies which could have a bigger impact on society, rather than raising children.”

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It was not a straightforward decision.

“My elder sister is not married, so there was this pressure from my family that I should have children,” she says. “But not having children was our personal choice since we felt – and still feel – we have larger life goals.”

They are far from alone in this decision. Many young people across India, which has seen rapid population growth for decades, are now choosing to have fewer children or not to have children at all.

According to government figures, including from the Sample Registration System (SRS) Statistical Report – the country’s largest demographic survey – India has been experiencing a falling birthrate for some years, but the reproduction rate had until now remained high enough to keep the population growing.

Now, the latest SRS report, released last month by India’s Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, shows that India’s total fertility rate (TFR) has dropped to 1.9 children born per woman – lower than the benchmark level of 2.1 required to sustain a population at its current levels. The TFR is the average number of children that a woman is expected to have in her lifetime. In the 2000s, India’s TFR was about 3.3 births per woman.

Experts say better access to education and contraceptives are among key factors behind the falling birthrate – along with the increased costs of bringing up children.

Mothers with their newborns wait their turn for an antenatal examination outside a doctor’s room at a maternity hospital in Mumbai, India [File: Niharika Kulkarni/Reuters]

Career drivers

Jyotsna Mirlay, a consultant gynaecologist in Bengaluru, told Al Jazeera that higher levels of education and globalisation mean today’s young women are less likely to buy into traditional narratives about the importance of marriage and children than their mothers and grandmothers did. They are turning away from the message that “you will only feel settled in life if you get married and have children”, she said.

“Such narratives made the Indian woman feel she had to sideline her career and have children. Now, that narrative has totally lost credibility. And it’s not making sense to women of the 30-40 age group who are more empowered due to education and have financial freedom, which gives them a choice to decide if they want to have children,” Mirlay says.

She has found that couples who come to her for medical consultations about having children are increasingly making decisions to conceive around their careers.

“I’ve seen couples question why they should have children when they are doing well in their careers,” she says. “They are often in a dilemma about whether having children will add value to their lives or if it is just a necessity to fit into society.”

For Shweta Luthra, 41, a Bengaluru-based human rights lawyer, children were not an immediate priority when she married at the age of 23.

“I wanted to focus on my career, study more and travel the world. My partner wanted to have children,” she told Al Jazeera. But, she says, they were barely earning enough at the time to bring a child into the world.

She ultimately moved to the United Kingdom with her partner to pursue her PhD, but soon discovered she was pregnant.

“I tell my son he was 100 percent an accident. But I decided to have the baby since it made my family and partner happy, and I did want to have a child later on in life,” she says, even if it came sooner than she would have liked.

There is often a “sweet spot”, says Luthra, when it comes to having children, especially for people who make the decision to fit around their careers.

“Either you have children very early, as I did in my 20s, and then you focus on your career, or you choose to have children much later in life, once you have reached leadership positions at work and have the capacity to guide your team remotely, while focusing on children,” she says.

Many women in India who want to prioritise their careers are also choosing to freeze their eggs. India has more than 2,000 fertility centres offering egg freezing.

Maria*, whose name has been changed for privacy reasons, is a 38-year-old freelance makeup artist in Bengaluru. She says some of her friends have chosen to freeze their eggs so they won’t feel so pressured to have a child while they are at crucial points in their careers or if they have not yet met a suitable partner.

“I think it’s given a lot of women the option to not rush into motherhood and do it at a time they can afford or choose to. I think it’s great that this option has become more acceptable and accessible,” she said.

Navigating the cost of living

While career choices and education are driving decisions about when – or even whether – to have children, the country’s increasing cost of living is also a key factor for many Indians.

India is currently experiencing inflation. According to India’s Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, the country’s consumer price inflation in April rose for the sixth straight month to 3.48 percent from 3.40 percent in March. The country’s central bank warned that if the United States and Israel’s war on Iran escalates, it could further stoke inflation in India.

According to the International Monetary Fund, India’s average annual income was $2,878 in 2025 – or just under $240 per month. But, according to Numbeo, the world’s largest cost-of-living database, the estimated monthly costs for a person in India as of June 2026 are 27,664.7 rupees ($290.40), excluding rent.

For Roopa, a 36-year-old team leader at a large electronics company, the high cost of living is a key concern when it comes to deciding whether or not to have children. While she has not yet married, she says she grew up watching her single mother working long hours as a housekeeper to raise her and her brother. Roopa only wants to have children if and when she feels financially secure.

“Most of us want to provide our children with a good quality of life, including proper education and opportunities for the future. With the rising cost of living, many of us want to take time to consider our financial stability and career goals before expanding our families,” she told Al Jazeera.

Luthra says many young people have given up hope of raising families at all – and are focusing on improving their lifestyles instead.

“Many young people are choosing to spend their money by going on holidays or go out to dine and drink every weekend over having children. The money they are left with at the end of the month is then spent on rent and other bills,” she said.

According to the latest SRS report, India is experiencing a decline in infant deaths from 30 per 1,000 live births in 2019 to 24 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2024.

Experts have historically observed that as infant mortality falls in a population, the drive to have more children also appears to decrease.

This appears to be playing out in India.

According to the May demographic survey by India’s Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India’s poorest states, such as Bihar in northern India, which has the lowest levels of education alongside high infant mortality rates, also recorded the highest fertility rate in the country at 2.9, followed by 2.6 in Uttar Pradesh.

By contrast, India’s capital New Delhi, with among the highest levels of education and lowest infant mortality rates, registered the lowest fertility rate, with an average of 1.2 births per woman. Southern states such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala, with among the best health and education systems in India, recorded a rate of 1.3.

“I think infant mortality rate has reduced for several reasons, including what the government has done about making sure that births take place in safe places and people have access to immunisation and healthcare. So that is the happy byproduct everyone in India has been striving for,” Mirlay, the gynaecologist, says.

A couple whose baby was born using a surrogate pose for a photo in Anand, India [File: Allison Joyce/AP]

Informed choices

In many cases, whether a couple has children or not comes down to the practical options available to women.

“The choice and the ease to source oral contraceptive pills, whether it’s at a chemist or at a primary health centre, has become much easier today,” Mirlay says. “And I think that has also allowed women in smaller cities and rural areas to make informed decisions about having children.”

She adds that many women are choosing how many children to have, according to what sort of support they have around them.

“If you look at the typical social system in India, young couples have their parents who help them take care of children. But if they choose to have children at an older age, this support system might not necessarily exist and they will have to resort to nannies or daycares, which could become expensive,” she says.

Luthra, the human rights lawyer, points out that how companies choose to support people also determines their decision about having children.

In India, working women are entitled to up to 26 weeks of paid leave for their first two children, 12 weeks for third and subsequent children, and 12 weeks for adopted children. When it comes to paternity leave, federal government employees are legally entitled to 15 days of paid paternity leave, but there is no federal law in the private sector.

“I know the case of a friend who told his employer he would like to take time off since he and his partner were having a child and the employer said: ‘What are nannies and daycares for?’ Such a narrative makes it difficult for working couples to decide on children,” Luthra says.

And, while the infant mortality rate is reducing, infertility (the inability to get pregnant) in India is rising. Studies have shown that the infertility rate in India has increased from 22.4 percent in 1992-93 to 30.7 percent in 2015-16.

According to Mirlay, some of this is down to compromised lifestyle choices. “Many of them have poor metabolic health, struggle with obesity, hormonal imbalances and all this makes it difficult to conceive,” she said.

She notes that while infertility clinics have popped up across the country, fertility treatments are expensive, which can discourage many couples from even trying.

A woman and her baby wait for a bus to take them to a railway station to board a train to their home state of Uttar Pradesh [File: Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

Government action

While the Indian government has not yet announced a nationwide policy to tackle the nation’s falling birthrate, individual states have been trying to encourage people to have more children.

Last month, the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where the birthrate is languishing at 1.4 children per woman, is offering 30,000 rupees ($315) to couples on the birth of a third child and 40,000 for a fourth child ($420).

States such as Goa in the west and Karnataka and Telangana in the south have introduced state-funded IVF centres for first-time parents, to encourage people to have more children.

But according to Mirlay, the government should be asking more questions about why people are not having babies, if it is serious about managing India’s falling fertility rate.

“When a couple decide to have or not have children, it is an informed decision. So the government telling them to have more children is very unlikely to make them change their mind,” she says.

“So I think the government should rather be asking questions like ‘Why are couples in their 30s and early 40s finding it so difficult to get pregnant?'” Mirlay says.

For Agarwal in Bengaluru, besides the government, Indian society at large could also play more of a role in respecting people’s reproductive choices.

“I still get weird looks when I tell people that my partner and I decided not to have children. People talk behind our backs and question if one of us has a medical condition which has prevented us from having children. At family gatherings, some people cannot understand the reasoning behind our decision,” she said.

“But reproduction is and should be a personal choice. It might take time to understand people’s choices but society should accept and respect it,” she said.