A lot of the media is writing about how India’s population is now, or will be any moment, bigger than China. The issue I always have with these narratives is India is a big country; UP has a total fertility rate of around 3, while West Bengal is closer to 1.5. I assembled data on TFR’s in administrative divisions across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. I plotted by population and TFR (the second chart is log-transformed so you can see more of the labels). Click to enlarge.
Also attached the table below.
| Division | Population | TFR |
| Barisal Division | 8555000 | 2.2 |
| Chittagong Division | 29958000 | 2.3 |
| Dhaka Division | 50918000 | 1.9 |
| Khulna Division | 15892000 | 2.0 |
| Mymensingh Division | 11396000 | 2.1 |
| Rajshahi Division | 18965000 | 2.3 |
| Rangpur Division | 17466000 | 2.3 |
| Sylhet Division | 11438000 | 2.2 |
| Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) | 4046000 | 3.8 |
| Balochistan | 12344000 | 4.5 |
| Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) | 1205000 | 3.8 |
| Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) | 2130000 | 2.8 |
| Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) | 35525000 | 3.9 |
| Punjab | 110012000 | 3.1 |
| Sindh | 47886000 | 3.5 |
| Andhra Pradesh | 54520000 | 1.8 |
| Arunachal Pradesh | 1617000 | 2.2 |
| Assam | 35607000 | 2.3 |
| Bihar | 125029000 | 3.4 |
| Chhattisgarh | 28034000 | 2.3 |
| Goa | 1631000 | 1.7 |
| Gujarat | 67600000 | 2.2 |
| Haryana | 29780000 | 2.1 |
| Himachal Pradesh | 7252000 | 1.7 |
| Jammu and Kashmir | 13952000 | 1.8 |
| Jharkhand | 38070000 | 2.5 |
| Karnataka | 66891000 | 1.9 |
| Kerala | 35699000 | 1.8 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 85582000 | 2.7 |
| Maharashtra | 122153000 | 1.8 |
| Manipur | 3117000 | 2.2 |
| Meghalaya | 3437000 | 3.0 |
| Mizoram | 1207000 | 2.1 |
| Nagaland | 2411000 | 2.0 |
| Odisha | 46982000 | 2.1 |
| Punjab | 30405000 | 1.9 |
| Rajasthan | 79536000 | 2.4 |
| Sikkim | 688000 | 1.2 |
| Tamil Nadu | 77841000 | 1.7 |
| Telangana | 39364000 | 1.8 |
| Tripura | 4390000 | 1.7 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 237882000 | 3.1 |
| Uttarakhand | 11519000 | 2.0 |
| West Bengal | 100098000 | 1.6 |
avg. tfr in bangladesh is 2 and it is 1.6 for west bengal. historically muslims have had a higher tfr in india. does this mean that hindu tfr in west bengal is almost 1.2 or less?
Muslim fertility rate usually lags behind Hindu TFR by approximately ten years, so it’s more likely that Bengali Hindu TFR is 1.5 and Bengali Muslim TFR is 1.9. The population split is 70-30, so the weighted average is 1.6.
1. High steppe will replace low steppe?
2. South Asian countries at below replacement tfr is interesting.
They still have high marriage rates, very low divorce rates, low labour force participation rates for women, supportive social networks etc… so if they are not having kids what do the bahus do all day ?
Or maybe they are having one kid each and really investing in that kid?