The Big Fertility Gap Story: What Examples from Different States Tell

Hindu-Muslim population gap has always been a topic of hot debate, often assuming political overtones. Beyond emotional analysis, the issue is linked to the total fertility rate (TFR). The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) sheds light on this. The NFHS-6 for 2023-24 showed that India’s TFR had stabilised at 2.0, below the replacement level of 2.1 needed to keep a population stable. NFHS-5 data for 2019-21 had made the same observation. Within that 2.0 average, a long-discussed gap remains. Muslim women have, on average, more children than Hindu women. The Census of India data, the NFHS data, and government records reveal where the Hindu-Muslim fertility gap is the widest, states with the highest Muslim fertility, and where the population mix is shifting the fastest. The NFHS-6 hasn’t released the religious demographic fertility data yet. So, much of the base data for analysis is from NFHS-5.