POVERTY AND FERTILITY IN INDIA: Demographic Field Theory Perspective

This book deals with two burgeoning issues of India-abject poverty and high fertility- that demand urgent solution. Otherwise, India would remain a poor country, though a software superpower. Most Indian demographers are not concerned with poverty-fertility nexus. Suitable theory also lacks. So, a novel theory, the Demographic Field Theory, is presented herein explaining such nexus, filling up a great lacuna.

Many canonical analyses are performed between demographic, socio-economic and policy systems, using recent National Family and Health Survey (NFHS), Census 2001, Sample Registration Survey (SRS) and Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) survey data, making it most current. Causal relations between syndrome of poverty and fertility, sadly, remains same, over time.

The main purpose of this work is to draw attention of scholars and policy makers to this syndrome. All canonical results (1992-2004) very strongly proved that unless abject poverty and female illiteracy are not urgently reduced, fertility will not decline. This is also necessary for demographic transition.

This study, being both theoretical and empirical, synthesizing and policy-oriented, thus has made a seminal and path-breaking contribution to demography, population studies, geography, economics and social sciences.