China and India are the two most populous countries in the world and together they account for almost 38 per cent of the global population. China's population has already crossed the 1.2 billion mark and India's is expected to exceed 1 billion around the turn of the century. However, in recent years, the annual growth rate of the Chinese population has slowed down, to about 1.1 per cent, whereas in India it continues to be almost 2 per cent. The available evidence shows that China has experienced a large and remarkably rapid fertility transition in recent years, whereas although fertility in India has also fallen, the decline has been much smaller. Why has India not been as successful as China in achieving a fertility decline?

The crucial role played by socio-economic development in fertility decline is by now widely recognized in the demographic literature. However, when such development takes place at a slow pace, direct intervention in the form of family planning efforts can be, and often is, attempted. Thus, both socio-economic development and family planning programme efforts are expected to contribute to fertility decline. A number of studies have tried to assess the relative roles of development and programme in bringing about a fertility change. Based on an analysis of 94 countries, Mauldin and Berelson (1978) observed that, although programme efforts are important, programmes in countries with a better social setting are more successful. Srikantan (1977) also highlighted the importance of the socio-economic context for the success of family planning programmes. A recent analysis by Bongaarts and others (1990:303) confirms some of the earlier findings; it has been observed that declines in fertility are associated with both development and strength of programme effort, and that socio-economic development and family planning programmes "operate synergistically, with one reinforcing the other".

In the context of China and India, both of these factors plausibly can play a role. While it is true that both countries are characterized by low income and are predominantly agrarian and thus belong to the less developed world, notable changes have occurred recently. India became independent in 1947 and China completed a socialist revolution not much later. Soon thereafter both countries undertook massive programmes for social and economic development. Moreover, both China and India introduced government-sponsored family planning programmes on a large scale, the Indian efforts beginning earlier than those of the Chinese.

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* The authors of this paper are P.M. Kulkarni, Professor, and S. Rani, a research student at the time the paper was written, both in the Department of Population Studies, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, India 641 046.

China's success in bringing about a large and rapid fertility decline has generated considerable interest in the causes of that decline (Tien, 1984; Bongaarts and Greenhalgh, 1985; Wolf, 1988; Poston and Gu, 1987; Whyte and Gu, 1987; Lavely and Freedman, 1990). However, a consensus on the relative importance of socio-economic development and the family planning programme has yet to emerge. While some analysts argue that China's family planning campaign of the 1970s played a decisive role in bringing about the fertility transition, especially in rural areas, others argue that socio-economic changes also played an important role in this (see, in particular, Tien, 1984). The causes of the fertility decline in India have attracted relatively less attention, principally because the quantum of decline is quite moderate. Some analyses of fertility changes in regions of India that have experienced higher than average fertility declines differed on the relative contributions of the family planning programme and socio-economic development (Caldwell and others, 1982; Zachariah, 1984; Rao and others, 1986; Bhat and Irudayarajan, 1990).

In this paper, it is proposed to provide a comparative view of fertility decline in these two countries. This comparison is made against the background of socio-economic changes and programme effort. The evidence on fertility decline is examined first, followed by a brief description of socio-economic changes and population policies and programmes. The fertility decline is then discussed in the context of these two sets of factors.

The fertility level in China in the immediate post-revolution period was remarkably close to the level in India around the time of independence. A computer reconstruction by Banister (1987:357) estimated the crude birth rate (CBR) in China to be in the range 41-44 per thousand population during the period 1949-1951 and the total fertility rate (TFR) in the range 5.7-6.1 children per woman. For India, recent estimates show that the CBR was near 45 per thousand and the TFR near 6 during the period 1941-1951 (Bhat, 1989:96, 100).

For China, estimates based on the 1982 census data, the 1982 One-Per-Thousand Fertility Sample Survey, and the 1987 One-per-cent Population Changes Sample Survey are available (Coale, 1984; Banister, 1987; Feeney and others, 1989). The estimates by Coale and Banister are for a longer period and the two series are nearly identical. The estimates by Feeney and his colleagues are for a more recent period. Trends from these are given in table 1. It can be seen that the CBR in China was moderately high at around 40 per thousand in the early 1950s, dipping drastically to the low value of 22 per thousand in 1961 towards the end of the post-Great Leap Forward crisis, but soon recovering and after some fluctuations reaching a level of around 36 per thousand towards the end of the 1960s. A secular decline began in the 1970s and the CBR declined sharply to 21 per thousand by the end of that decade. The trends in TFR give an almost identical picture. TFR was around 6 during the early 1950s; it fluctuated widely in the 1960s before reaching a level just below 6 (5.81-5.82) in 1970. But throughout the 1970s it declined by over 50 per cent, to 2.75 in 1979. Fertility was extremely low in 1980 but soon recovered to the 1978/79 level. Some fluctuations occurred during the 1980s, with a small decline taking place in 1983/84 and a recovery by 1987, but with no clear trend emerging. Recent estimates indicate that the CBR in 1990 was almost identical to that in 1981 (Zeng and others, 1991). Thus, the major fertility transition in China appears to have been completed by 1981 and over the period 1970 to 1981 the decline was on the order of 15 points in CBR and over 3 points in TFR.

Source	Crude birth rate			Total fertility rate
	1	2	3	1	2	3
Year
1950	42.0	40.5		5.81	5.81
1951	41.0	39.8		5.70	5.70
1952	46.0	45.1		6.47	6.57
1953	42.2	42.2		6.05	6.05
1954	43.4	43.5		6.28	6.28
1955	43.0	42.7		6.26	6.26
1956	39.9	39.4		5.86	5.85
1957	43.3	42.5		6.40	6.49
1958	37.8	36.9		5.68	5.68
1959	28.5	27.7		4.31	4.30
1960	26.8	26.0		4.0	4.02
1961	22.4	21.9		3.29	3.29
1962	41.0	40.1		6.03	6.02
1963	49.8	48.9		7.51	7.50
1964	40.3	39.9		6.18	6.18
1965	39.0	38.9		6.07	6.08
1966	39.8	39.6		6.26	6.26
1967	33.9	33.4		5.32	5.31
1968	41.0	40.4		6.45	6.45
1969	36.2	35.8		5.73	5.72
1970	37.0	36.5		5.82	5.81
1971	34.9	34.6		5.45	5.44
1972	32.5	31.8		4.99	4.98
1973	29.9	29.5	29.7	4.54	4.54	4.73
1974	28.1	28.0	27.3	4.17	4.17	4.27
1975	24.8	24.8	24.7	3.58	3.57	3.80
1976	23.1	23.2	22.9	3.23	3.24	3.28
1977	21.0	21.1	21.4	2.85	2.84	3.05
1978	20.7	20.8	21.0	2.72	2.72	2.69
1979	21.4	21.6	21.0	2.75	2.75	2.78
1980	17.6	18.1	19.7	2.24	2.24	2.54
1981	21.0	21.2	21.3	2.69	2.63	2.43
1982	21.1	21.3	21.6	2.71	2.66	2.88
1983	19.0	-	19.6	2.35	-	2.54
1984	18.1	-	18.9	2.16	-	2.36
1985	-	-	19.5	-	-	2.27
1986	-	-	21.0	-	-	2.33
1987	-	-	21.2	-	-	2.45

Sources: 1. Banister (1987:352);

2. Coale (1984, unadjusted series:47);

3. Feeney and others, (1989:301, 304).

In India, the coverage of the vital registration system is not yet good enough to provide reliable estimates of fertility measures. However, indirect estimates obtained from the census data or from special surveys are available (Preston and Bhat, 1984; Rele, 1987; Srikantan and Balasubramanian, 1989; Bhat, 1993). There is close correspondence among these (table 2). According to estimates by Preston and Bhat (1984), CBR fell from 40.2 per thousand in the period 1966-1971 to 34.0 per thousand in the period 1976-1981 and the TFR declined from 5.67 to 4.69 over the same period; most of the decline probably occurred in the late 1970s. Rele's estimates show that the CBR was around 45 per thousand until the mid-1960s, but declined to 34.4 per thousand by the period 1976-1981, and the TFR, which was close to 6 up to the middle of the 1960s, also fell to 4.65 by the period 1976-1981 (Rele, 1987). Srikantan and Balasubramanian (1989) estimated the CBR to be 43.4 per thousand in 1961, declining to 34.9 per thousand by 1981; the implied decline in the TFR over the same period was from 5.82 to 4.78. Thus, regardless of the set of estimates used, the fertility decline from the 1950s to about 1981 was 6-11 points in CBR and about 1 point in TFR.

The detailed age distributions as well as the data on current and cumulative fertility obtained in India's 1991 census are not yet available as of this writing (1995). However, Bhat (1993) provided reverse survival estimates of the crude birth rate from the 1991 census data. These indicate that the CBR in India was 32.0 per thousand during the period 1984-1990, indicating a further decline in the 1980s. In recent years, the Sample Registration System (SRS) in India has been providing annual estimates of vital rates. Although in the early phase of the implementation of this system there were some interruptions, the more recent data appear to be of good quality. It is still possible that the SRS estimates slightly underestimate the vital rates and hence should not be used in conjunction with the census-based indirect estimates for the earlier dates to ascertain trends. However, for the recent period, the SRS series by itself can be used to examine the trends; hence, SRS estimates are also given in table 2 for the period 1981-1991. These show that declines of about 4 points in the CBR and 1 point in TFR appear to have taken place during the 1980s. Added to the decline up to 1981 inferred from the census-based estimates, the CBR in India appears to have declined by 10-15 points and the TFR by nearly 2 points between the 1950s and 1991.

Thus, although both China and India have experienced fertility declines in the recent period, the Chinese decline has been much greater, i.e. over 3 points in TFR as compared with only about 2 points in India. Until 1971, there was very little gap in the TFRs of the two countries, but by 1981, a gap of over 2 points had opened up (Coale's estimate for China was 2.63, and Srikantan-Balasubramanian's for India, 4.78). The gap narrowed somewhat through the 1980s; however, the Indian fertility rate remains well above that of the Chinese.

Source	Crude birth rate				Total fertility rate
	1	2	3	4	1	2	3	4
Period/year
1951-1956	-	45.9	-		5.95	-	-
1956-1961	-	45.2	-		6.03	-	-
1961	-	-	43.4		-	-	5.82
1961-1966	-	44.0	-		6.05	-	-
1966-1971	40.2	41.9	-		5.67	5.78	-
1971	-	-	40.1		-	-	5.74
1971-1976	37.9	39.3	39.8		5.37	5.37	-
1976-1981	34.0	34.4	35.0		4.69	4.65	-
1981	-	-	34.9	33.9	-	-	4.78	4.5
1986	-	-	-	32.6	-	-	-	4.2
1991	-	-	-	29.5	-	-	-	3.6

Source: 1. Preston and Bhat (1984:498);

2. Rele (1987, series A:516, 518);

3. Srikantan and Balasubramanian (1989:76-77);

4. India, Registrar General, various years: unadjusted series from the Sample Registration System.

Note: Dashes (-) indicates that no estimate for that year/period is available from the respective source. In the case of the Sample Registration Series, estimates prior to 1981 are not given; and from 1981 onwards, though annual estimates are available, estimates are given only at intervals of five years in order to save space.

A decomposition of the fertility decline into the contribution of changes in proportions married and marital fertility provides a better picture of the nature of the decline. Rani (1990) obtained such a decomposition for the fertility changes in China by taking three time points: 1950, to represent the early post-revolution period; 1970, the point just before the major birth control campaign began; and 1981, a point after the major decline in fertility occurred. The TFR in 1970 was the same as that in 1950 (though there were wide fluctuations in the interim period), but the pattern of fertility had changed. The mean age at marriage for females rose by 1.5 years over this period, from 18.7 to 20.2 years (Banister, 1987), contributing to a decline in the TFR by a little over half a point. But this was balanced by an equal positive effect of a rise in marital fertility. Female age at marriage continued to rise even during the period 1970-1981, the mean increasing to 22.8 years in 1981, and thus contributing to a 0.74 point decline in the TFR. But the total decline in the TFR over this period was very large, i.e. 3.18 points; of this figure, 2.44 points or about three-fourths (76.7 per cent) of this was attributable to a drastic fall in marital fertility which occurred in all age groups except among those 15-19 years of age.

Cheng (1993) also analyzed the contributions of changes in marital status and marital fertility to the fertility decline in China over essentially the same period using Coale's If, Ig and Im indices. It was found that If declined from 0.5169 in 1953 to 0.2259 in 1981, i.e. by 56.3 per cent; Ig declined from 0.5924 to 0.3340, or by 43.6 per cent; and Im declined from 0.8726 to 0.6754, or by only 22.5 per cent. Thus, Cheng's results corroborate the earlier observation that changes in marital fertility have played a major role in the Chinese fertility decline.

For India, Retherford and Rele (1989) estimated that, of the 1.06 point decline in TFR between the periods 1960-1964 and 1980-1984, 0.76 (about three-fourths) was due to a decline in marital fertility. Mean age at marriage for females rose in India, but less impressively than in China; this factor contributed to a decline in TFR of only 0.30 points.

Thus, in absolute terms, changes in both nuptiality and marital fertility have made greater contributions to fertility decline in China than in India. But in the recent decline the relative share of marital fertility has been about the same in both countries.

The difference in the recent fertility of both India and China can also be decomposed in a similar manner (table 3). The year 1981 has been chosen for this purpose. The choice was dictated by the following reasons: by 1981 the fertility transition in China may be considered as having been completed, estimates of marital fertility and proportions married in India were also available for this year, and the 1991 Indian census data on marital status and fertility are not yet available. The age-specific rates given by Banister (1987:230) yield a TFR of 2.635 for China, and the rates given by Srikantan and Balasubramanian (1989) imply a TFR of 4.776 for India in 1981. The difference of 2.141 points is about evenly divided into contributions of proportion married (1.153 points) and marital fertility (0.987 points). Since Chinese women on average marry at a much later age than Indian women (in 1981, the mean for Indian women was 18.4 years, as compared with 22.8 years for Chinese women), fertility in the 15-19 and 20-24 age groups is very low in China, even though Chinese marital fertility at these ages is higher. For women older than 30, marital fertility itself is very low in China. The substantial China-India differences in marital fertility in late but not early child-bearing ages indicate that the propensity to limit families is much greater in China than in India.

As mentioned previously, both China and India are low-income, less developed countries. But over the years there has been an improvement in certain aspects of their socio-economic conditions. In India, the overall literacy rate for the population aged five years and older increased from 18.3 per cent in 1951 to 41.4 per cent in 1981 and for females from 8.9 per cent in 1951 to 28.5 per cent in 1981 (India, Registrar General, 1993). The estimates for 1991 for the population aged seven years and older are 52.1 per cent for both sexes combined, and 39.4 per cent for females. In spite of this increase, the level of literacy in India falls well short of the Chinese level, i.e. 68.1 per cent in 1982 for the population above age 12 (80.8 per cent for males and 54.7 per cent for females) (Banister, 1987). School enrolment at the primary level is also higher in China. In terms of per capita income, China was better off than India until the mid-1980s, although the gap subsequently narrowed (World Bank, 1989). In certain aspects of socio-economic development that are not easily quantifiable, China is reported to be more advanced. For example, the status of Chinese women has improved considerably in the post-revolution period (Banister, 1987).

Age group years	India (1981)			China (1981)			Differ- ence in ASFR	Contribution of differences in
	ASMFR	PM	ASFR	ASMFR	PM	ASFR	India- China	ASMFR	PM
15-19	219.9	0.4347	95.6	331.8	0.0452	15	80.6	-26.9	107.5
20-24	309.2	0.8444	261.1	384.1	0.4738	182	79.1	-49.4	128.5
25-29	260.3	0.9433	245.5	228.1	0.9338	213	32.5	30.2	2.3
30-34	167.1	0.9481	177.4	72.6	0.9786	71	106.4	110.3	-4.0
35-39	116.3	0.9317	108.4	32.2	(0.9622)	31	77.4	79.6	-2.3
40-44	52.9	0.8781	46.5	14.3	(0.9086)	13	33.5	34.5	-1.0
45-49	24.9	0.8293	20.6	2.3	(0.8599)	2	18.6	19.1	-0.4
TFR			4.776				2.635	2.141	0.987	1.153
Percentage of total difference							100.0	46.1	53.9

Notes: 1. ASMFR = age-specific marital fertility rate; PM = proportion currently married; ASFR = age-specific fertility rate; TFR = total fertility rate.

2. For the methodology of decomposition, see Retherford and Rele (1989).

3. For India, the ASMFR and the PM are from Srikantan and Balasubramanian (1989:77).

4. For China, the ASFR are from Banister (1987:230), and the proportions married are computed from Coale (1984:82-84). The proportions from Coale are of "ever married women"; these are accepted as proportions "currently married" for age groups up to 30-34; for the higher age groups, the proportions are assumed to be higher than the corresponding proportions in India by 0.0305 (the difference in the 30-34 age group), and shown in parentheses. The ASMFRs are computed from ASFR and PM values.

5. A small difference in the sum of the contributions of the two components and the total appears in some cases to be slightly imprecise due to rounding.

Until the past decade, the availability of food was relatively low in both China and India; it is well known that China was severely affected by a famine during the period 1958-1961. However, in more recent times there has been an improvement in the availability of food in China and per capita calorie consumption is moderately higher in China than in India (Smil, 1986). In both countries, health services, mainly through government sources in China and through both government and private sources in India, have improved over the years. But due to certain successful schemes such as the "barefoot doctors" scheme, health services are currently within easier reach of the Chinese population than the Indian population. This is reflected in the impressive rise in the expectation of life in China, from 40.3 years in 1953 to 64.8 years in 1981 (Banister, 1987). According to United Nations figures, life expectancy at birth in China is currently about 68 years (United Nations, 1994). Life expectancy increased in India as well but to a much lesser degree, i.e. from 41.3 years during the period 1951-1961 to 52.5 years during the period 1976-1980 and 57.7 years during the period 1986-1990 (India, Department of Family Welfare, 1992; India, Registrar General, 1994b). United Nations estimates indicate that life expectancy in India currently is 60 years (United Nations, 1994).

There are major differences in the political and administrative structures of the two countries. Following the socialist revolution in 1949, China established a government that follows a Marxist ideology with the Communist Party playing a dominant role. It was only in the early 1980s that both the commune system, introduced for collective agricultural production, and the system of government control of almost all industrial production were liberalized. The party cadres play an important role in administration at the grassroots level and can be effective in popularizing and implementing government policies.

After India achieved independence, it adopted a multi-party democratic system in which the majority party formed the Government, which is answerable to a parliament comprising members of various parties. Further, in the Indian federal structure it is possible, and has often been the case, that the governments in some of the States (provinces) and municipalities are formed by parties other than the one that forms the central (national) Government. Thus, although one party has been in power at the central level during most of the post-independence period, it has not enjoyed the kind of dominance its counterpart in China has. Moreover, the party organizations in India have not been as strong and hence the party cadres have little involvement in the actual implementation of government programmes. Most of this task is entrusted to various departments of the Government staffed by professionals and administrators.

Thus, in terms of social aspects as well as health conditions, China appears to have done much better than India in recent years (see table 4). In terms of the economy the Chinese superiority is not as conspicuous, although with the socialistic pattern of society the inequalities in China are much lower and consequently the extent of poverty smaller than in India. The more crucial difference is perhaps in the administrative-political structures: the role of the Chinese party system in social reforms and in the implementation of government programmes has not been matched by any political organization in India.

Indicator	China	India	Kerala
Education
Percentage literate (ages 10+ or 12+)
1. Females	54.7	29.0	74.6
2. Males	80.8	57.0	87.6
3. Female school enrolment ratio	106	64
Economic
4. Per capita GDP (US$)	300	210	186
5. Percentage of GDP from non-agricultural activities	65	63	61
6. Percentage of economically active population outside agriculture	31	33	59
7. Percentage of population residing in urban localities	20.6	23.3	18.7
Health and mortality
Life expectancy
1. Female	65.0	53.4	69.5
2. Male	64.5	53.1	64.4
10. Infant mortality rate	44	110	37
11. Population per physician	1,920	3,640	n.a.

Source: Banister (1987): for China, indicators 1, 2, 7-10.

India, Department of Family Welfare (1992): for India, indicators 1-4, 7, 10; for Kerala, indicators 1, 2, 4, 7, 10.

World Bank (1983): for China, indicators 3-6, 11; for India, indicators 5, 11.

India, Registrar General (1983): for India and Kerala, indicator 6.

Bhat and Irudayarajan (1990): for India and Kerala, indicators 8, 9; the life expectancies for the periods 1976-1980 and 1981-1985 are averaged to obtain the estimates for 1981.

Oxford University Press (1987): for Kerala, indicator 5.

Note: GDP = Gross domestic product, converted into United States dollars at the then prevailing exchange rates.

India launched a nationwide family planning programme in 1952 with full government support. This was in response to the concern about rapid population growth that was expressed in its developmental policy. Initially, the programme was clinic based, providing information about contraceptives and contraceptive services to couples who requested these. Later, in the mid-1960s, the extension approach was adopted and efforts were made to motivate couples to accept contraception, including sterilization, with the help of the mass media and personal communication by government health workers and others (an overview of the Indian programme can be found in Srikantan and Balasubramanian, 1983). Acceptor targets were set, incentives to acceptors and motivators provided, and innovative approaches such as mass sterilization camps attempted. The Indian programme reached a peak in 1976 at the time of the national emergency. The sterilization campaign was intensified, there were greater pressures on the government workers to achieve allotted quotas of sterilization acceptors, and a proposal to make sterilization compulsory for couples with a designated number of children was considered although not approved. Over 8 million sterilizations were performed in a single year. However, there was much public resentment about the pressure tactics applied and there were complaints of compulsion and poor services (for a discussion, see Gwatkin, 1979). These became major issues in the 1977 elections which the then ruling party lost. The successor Government assured the people that there would be no compulsion in family planning and the name of the programme was changed from "family planning" to "family welfare". The acceptance of birth control thus received a severe setback in 1977. The efforts in motivation and services, however, continued and after 1980 the acceptance of all types of contraceptives has generally increased. The contraceptive prevalence level was very low in 1967, i.e. 4.4 per cent, rising only slightly to 10.4 per cent by 1971. A substantial increase took place later, and the prevalence level reached 23.5 per cent in 1977. After remaining stagnant around 22 per cent up to 1981, it rose further to 44 per cent by 1991 (India, Department of Family Welfare, 1992).

In China, although birth control services were made available in the 1950s, there was hesitation about including population control within the national development policy. In the course of some ideological debates during the period of the Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) and again during the "Cultural Revolution" (1966-1976), because population growth was not considered an obstacle to development, proponents of fertility regulation were often ridiculed. Nevertheless, birth control services had become available in all the urban and most of the rural areas by the end of the Cultural Revolution (Banister, 1987). By 1970, a consensus emerged that the population growth rate needed to be curbed and the famous wan xi shao ("later" marriage, "longer" gap between births, and "fewer" children) campaign was introduced. Incentives were provided for the acceptance of birth control and disincentives for non-adoption. The birth control programme was treated as a part of overall economic programme and targets were set at the commune and lower levels. As a result, government workers and party cadres became involved in the motivation efforts. The close contact between them and the people enabled the programme to be implemented effectively. In 1979, the now well-known one-child-per-couple campaign was introduced. The acceptance of contraceptives increased rapidly during the 1970s, and by 1981, 64.4 per cent of couples of reproductive age were using some form of contraception (Jimin, 1989). During the 1980s, contraceptive prevalence rose further, i.e. to 77.3 per cent in 1987, though there were some fluctuations during this time.

Because of the strong disincentives involved, the Chinese programme has been criticized (Banister, 1987). However, some relaxation was allowed later, particularly in the one-child campaign. Besides, specific concessions to minority populations were given even during the programme in the 1970s, and this is reflected in variations in contraceptive practice and fertility across regions and ethnic groups (Poston, 1986; Kulkarni, 1989; Yusuf and Byrnes, 1994).

The foregoing discussion primarily addresses issues of programme approaches and strategy, but the quality of a programme can play a crucial role in its impact. Recent work by Jain (1989) and Bruce (1990) has drawn attention to this aspect of the programme and provided a framework for the assessment of quality. Kaufman and others (1992) have discussed the quality of the Chinese programme in four counties. They observed that, though a number of contraceptive methods are available, the choice is primarily that of the provider. Further, the poor quality of some methods (for example, the stainless steel IUD) has contributed to many contraceptive failures. It was also observed that the users have not been well informed about method risks and potential side-effects. Many of the providers, especially village family planning service workers themselves have poor knowledge of such side-effects. In India, the providers often aggressively advocated sterilization even though a "cafeteria approach" was advocated under the programme. Further, information about method risks was poor, little attention was paid to clinical screening of prospective acceptors, and clearly the overall quality of service has not been good (see reviews by Banerji, 1989; Bhatia, 1989; Levine and others, 1992).

Overall, though the Indian programme started well before the Chinese programme did, it was quite weak during the early phase, and only moderate or moderately strong later, with a notable break after the emergency. By comparison, the Chinese programme though a late starter can be labelled as having been quite strong throughout the 1970s. Mauldin and Berelson (1978) classified the Indian programme as "weak" up to 1965, and "moderate" later; they classified the Chinese programme as "strong". In a more recent assessment, both the Chinese and the Indian programmes have been classified as "strong" (Mauldin and Ross, 1991). Even though the latest classification is accepted, it cannot be denied that since 1970 the Chinese programme has been considerably "stronger" than the Indian one.

The description of socio-economic changes and the family planning programmes in China and India clearly shows that China has done better than India in both aspects. It remains to be seen whether China's superiority in socio-economic development, or in programme effort, is primarily responsible for the greater fertility decline in China, or alternatively, whether the Chinese superiority in both has substantially contributed to it. With regard to socio-economic factors, China scores over India in some of them, especially literacy and survival levels, and is not worse off in any of them (table 4). However, even as late as 1981, when the major fertility decline was completed, many of the key indicators of socio-economic development in China were below the thresholds normally associated with the onset of fertility decline and well below the levels in most of the low fertility countries. In 1970, when the decline began, the conditions could not have been better, and probably were somewhat worse (non-availability of data on many indicators for China for a time around 1970 has compelled us to present the levels around 1981 for China, and for the sake of comparison, for India as well). Thus, although socio-economic development in China has been greater than that in India, the Chinese setting can only be considered moderately favourable for a fertility decline but not adequate on its own to induce the decline. Even without major socio-economic changes, a decline is possible if some sections of the society, usually an elite, adopt the small family norm and birth control practices, with this innovative behaviour later being adopted by others. Organized family planning programmes can assist in the diffusion of such behaviour and help to bring about a fertility decline. Clearly, in the absence of adequate structural changes, the role of such programmes needs to be examined carefully in assessing a fertility decline.

The contemporaneity of the fertility decline and the initiation of the birth control campaign would tempt one to conclude that this campaign has primarily been responsible for China's fertility decline. The major socio-economic changes in China, mass education, provision of health services, improvement in the status of women, reduction in income inequalities etc., began soon after the formation of the People's Republic in 1949. However, these did not show an influence on fertility except through a rise in age at marriage. Also, it is not that fertility for all subgroups remained high. Recent evidence shows that even before 1970 the urban educated population experienced a fertility decline (Lavely and Freedman, 1990). However, for most of the rural population the secular decline began only after the 1970s' birth-control campaign was introduced. Yet this would not provide enough evidence to conclude that the socio-economic changes did not play an important role in the fertility decline. Instead, it could be argued that such changes provided an environment conducive to the introduction of the family planning programme in China in 1970 and its successful implementation which the inadequate socio-economic changes in India could not provide for the Indian programme. Further, a portion of the India-China fertility difference is attributable to the higher age at marriage in China. Social factors, particularly higher female literacy, are known to be primarily responsible for the late marriage of females. A question that could be asked is: Would India have experienced a fertility decline similar to China's had there been comparable socio-economic changes in India?

As a step towards answering this question, the fertility decline in China may be compared with the trends in a region of India with a socio-economic setting that is closer to China's. The natural choice for such a comparison is the Indian State of Kerala, which enjoys high female literacy and low childhood mortality.

A comparative picture of some conditions in China and Kerala is given in table 4. Kerala is a little better off than China with respect to literacy and life expectancy, and China is a little better off in terms of income level, but overall the gaps are narrow and the Kerala-China correspondence is fairly close in social and health indicators in contrast to the India-China comparison. In addition to these indicators, Kerala is comparable to China with respect to many other relevant factors. Women in Kerala enjoy a high status; also, the level of political awareness in Kerala is high, even in rural areas, with strong trade unions for farm workers. Further, successful implementation of land reform programmes has reduced inequities in land ownership, and various welfare schemes have been in operation for some time. In addition, Kerala has had long spells of Communist Party government, though within the framework of the Indian federal structure.

Fertility trends in Kerala are given in table 5; the corresponding values for China are given alongside those data to facilitate comparison. During the 1950s, the CBR in Kerala was 43.9 per thousand and the TFR, 5.6; thus, fertility in Kerala was only slightly lower than that of China at that time. But a decline began soon thereafter and has continued fairly steadily through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. By the period 1985-1987, the CBR had fallen to 22.1 per thousand and the TFR to 2.3, i.e. almost to the replacement level of 2.1. The fertility decline has continued further, and in 1991 the TFR was only 1.8, well below the replacement level. Thus, between the 1950s and the mid-1980s, both China and Kerala experienced a fertility transition from a "moderately high" to a "low" level of fertility, marked by a total decline of 3.3-3.4 points in TFR. But there is a conspicuous contrast in the trends. While the decline in Kerala has been fairly well paced and spread over the time-frame of about three decades, from the 1950s to the 1980s, most of the decline in China took place within the short span of a single decade, corresponding to the implementation of the country's intensive birth control campaign. Thus, the superiority of the Chinese programme over its Indian counterpart can be said to be reflected in the greater speed of the transition.

1950

Year/period	Crude birth rate		Total fertility rate
	Kerala	China	Kerala	China
	40.5		5.8
1951-1960	43.9		5.6
1961-1970	37.1		5.0
1970		36.5		5.8
1971-1975	29.3	29.7	3.7	4.5
1976-1980	26.3	21.0	3.1	2.8
1981-1985	24.6	20.2	2.6	2.5
1985-1987	22.5	20.6	2.3	2.4
1991	18.3		1.8

Sources: For China: up to 1980, Coale (1984:47); and from 1981 onwards, averages are computed from single-year reverse survival estimates given by Feeney and others (1989). For Kerala: up to 1980, census-based estimates given by Bhat and Irudayarajan (1990:1965); from 1981 onwards, by India, Registrar General, various years; SRS series; and for 1991, by India, Registrar General (1994a).

Note: In the case of China, there were large fluctuations in the CBR in the late 1950s and early and mid-1960s. Hence, instead of decadal averages, only the end-point figures at 1950 and 1970 are given for comparison; for details, see table 1. For Kerala, the estimates for the 1950s and 1960s are obtained from the censuses, which are available for 10-year periods rather than for single years.

Why should the Chinese programme have done a better job in speeding up the fertility decline? The strong package of incentives and disincentives is one of the factors. The acceptors of contraception in China get substantial salary rises and the non-acceptors face severe cuts and thus the incentives have long-term implications. The incentives in the Indian programme are one-time payments of small amounts; occasionally, other incentives are given, but these too have little monetary value. There are hardly any disincentives in India; employees in some sectors do lose maternity benefits at high parity births, but very few are seriously affected by these.

Yet it would be wrong to attribute the greater effectiveness of the Chinese programme purely to the incentive-disincentive schemes. The Chinese have been quite successful in implementing various other national programmes as well. For example, health conditions in China have improved remarkably since 1949, and at a faster pace than in India. It seems that China has been able to ensure greater involvement of people in development programmes. A number of researchers, administrators and social scientists in India have drawn attention to the crucial role played by the participation of people including village leaders in programmes such as health and family planning, and efforts have been made to form village committees and involve them in the programmes. But there has been little success along these lines and most programmes in India are perceived as being imposed by the Government rather than being developed as people's programmes. India's "village guides" scheme, which was modeled after China's "barefoot doctors" scheme and was heavily dependent on local participation, failed to take off and has been practically abandoned.

One reason why the Chinese can ensure better local participation in government programmes is that party cadres from the villages and lower level administrative structures have a large say in their administration because of a closer identification of the Party with the Government. But in India, the civil servants who implement various programmes are not aligned with any political party (in fact, they are expected to be strictly apolitical) and the party workers do not have a role to play in day-to-day administration. Besides, most parties in India do not have a network of workers at the grassroots level and are not in a position to assist in the implementation of mass programmes. Finally, in the Indian political system, general elections are held at regular intervals and no party in the Government can afford to antagonize a large section of the people by implementing what could be perceived as a coercive programme and then expect to get re-elected. The 1977 elections clearly demonstrated this; since then, hardly any political party has advocated a strong family planning programme. Although it is true that there has been some resentment too over the one-child campaign especially in rural areas of China, and some changes have had to be made, the Government as such has never faced the risk being ousted over the issue.

Mauldin and Berelson (1976:111) identified ethnicity as one of the qualitative factors associated with fertility behaviour and remarked that Chinese and Chinese-related ethnic groups are associated with lower fertility through pragmatic responses to changing conditions. In a later re-examination of the Mauldin-Berelson analysis, Menard and Moen (1987) also noted that Chinese ethnicity in the presence of social change appears to have a fertility-depressing effect. But if this is so, why did Chinese fertility, especially in the rural areas, not show a decline before the introduction of the birth control campaign? Nevertheless, it may be argued that the Chinese people respond to government efforts more quickly than other national groups, and if this is so, at least part of the credit for the speedier fertility decline in China as compared with that in Kerala should go to aspects related to Chinese ethnicity.

The China, Kerala and India examples represent three combinations of socio-economic conditions and programme strength: moderately favourable socio-economic conditions and a strong programme in China, moderately favourable socio-economic conditions and a moderate programme in Kerala, and less favourable socio-economic conditions and a moderate programme in the rest of India. The results also differ: rapid, large decline; slower but large decline; and smaller decline, respectively. A consequence of the faster transition is that population growth before reaching the replacement level of fertility remains low.

Finally, we briefly discuss the prospects for the completion of the fertility transition in India in the near future. Would a Chinese type programme yield similar results in India? This question would make sense only if it were possible for India to implement such a programme. There are two difficulties. Firstly, the production system in India is much different from that of China, where most workers are employees of a governmental or collective organization. In India, a majority of rural workers are either owner-cultivators or agricultural labourers engaged on a casual basis by landowners. Hence, incentive schemes that manipulate the wages of individuals can cover a large proportion of the population in China but that is not the case in India. Secondly, an attempt to enforce a stronger birth control programme in India, e.g. the one attempted in 1976, had to be abandoned because of public disapproval. In fact, that attempt caused a major setback in the implementation of the entire programme. In its aftermath, the political leadership was for some time wary of giving prominence to family planning as a component of national development activities. It is worth noting that public resentment and the subsequent setback were less prominent in Kerala and some other States with above-average socio-economic indicators of development. Perhaps the less developed regions of India, with high infant mortality and low literacy, were not ready for such a programme. In any case, at this point in time the implementation of the Chinese model of a family planning programme does not appear feasible or promising for India.

If then India cannot adopt a Chinese-type programme, can it hope to follow Kerala's route to fertility transition? This would require a large change in the social and health conditions in the rest of the country. Kerala appears to be decades ahead of most of the other regions of India in terms of these conditions. If other regions of the country are not likely to catch up with Kerala in the near future, what chances does India have of achieving even a slower fertility transition?

In a recent article, Caldwell (1991) remarked that the thresholds required for fertility transition may vary across regions. Would India then be able to manage a fertility transition at a level of development lower than China's? The available evidence does not lend support to an affirmative answer. In fact, if any, it is Chinese and not Indian ethnicity that has been considered to be more favourable to fertility decline.

Thus, the prospects of an early completion of the fertility transition in India do not appear to be good. A favourable socio-economic setting is lacking. Also, there are institutional constraints in implementing Chinese-type programme measures. Further, even the ethnicity factor seems to go against India. However, paralleling Caldwell's arguments on the variation in the thresholds required for a fertility transition across regions, it could be argued that these may also vary over time. It is possible that with the passage of time portions of the total population may be able to achieve low fertility at lower levels of literacy, survival and other commonly used development indicators. Recent data indicate that some large Indian States with moderate -- albeit substantially lower than Kerala's -- levels of literacy and child survival have experienced large fertility declines in the past few years. The State of Tamil Nadu, which is in the southern region of the country as is Kerala, has practically reached replacement-level fertility; the CBR there in 1991 was estimated to be 20.8 per thousand and the TFR, slightly over the replacement level, at 2.2 (India, Registrar General, 1994a). Some other States have CBRs around 25 per thousand and TFRs around 3. If the trend continues, these States too would be able to achieve near replacement-level fertility by the end of this century. Yet they will have done so 5-15 years after Kerala. Thus, one could say that a level of development equivalent to Kerala's is not a necessary condition for completing the fertility transition, but the less developed societies would have to pay the price in terms of time. Moreover, States in the central region of India, characterized by very low levels of development, have yet to show evidence of substantial fertility declines. It is not clear whether they would be able to do so even at a later date without sufficient advances in socio-economic conditions and child survival. That the Kerala level of development is not a threshold for achieving the fertility transition does not necessarily imply that there is no threshold as such.

The comparison of the fertility transitions achieved in China and parts of India reveals that the decline in China has been much more impressive than that of India and the decline has been achieved in a very short time. It is true that the socio-economic conditions in China were more favourable to a fertility decline than those existing in India, but China's superiority was not overwhelming enough to attribute the difference in the declines to socio-economic factors. The Indian State of Kerala, which has a social setting comparable to that of China, has also experienced a large fertility decline but at a slower pace. Clearly, China's birth control campaign has played an important role in speeding up the fertility transition. A consequence is that China has succeeded in keeping the transition period quite short. India's political-administrative-economic system is not conducive to the application of China's programme strategies to achieve similar rapid results. Thus, India would have to follow its own route to achieving the fertility transition. This means that it would take a longer time to reach replacement-level fertility. At this stage, the chances of India's achieving low fertility in the near future appear to be poor. But there are large regional variations within India and a number of major States have either completed, or are on the verge of completing, the fertility transition.

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