Education, welfare and birth rate

It's been a few weeks since the death of some women who were subjected to a sterilization treatment in the Indian state of Chattisgarh.

Beyond the pain and just indignation, the fact shows once again the futility and harmfulness of sterilization programs aimed at reducing the birth rate.

Now the statistics and studies on the subject are clear. Rarely initiatives aimed at male sterilization and/or women have been successful and India should know it.

Large and expensive sterilization campaigns organized by the governments of Indira Gandhi, and run by his son Sanjay, have proved failures. And so the next, often encouraged by a few thousand rupees, but rarely effective.

In 2012 in India were made about 4.6 million female sterilizations and about 110 thousand men, 37% of sterilizations worldwide. Yet India is the country with one of the highest rates of population growth in the world and in 2050 will be the most populous country in the world surpassing China and failing all demographic targets that had been given (click here). On 7 billion and 300 million inhabitants on earth, currently 1 billion 200 million Indians.

What does it take then? Let's see some data collected from the site Indiastat and two publications of Amartya Sen that I recommend: "The Other India" and "An uncertain glory".

For example, "the link between female literacy and fertility is particularly evident", equally important is the level of participation of women at work and the level of benesse general in Kerala - considered one of the most socially advanced states of India, the rate fertility (births per woman) is 1.8 compared to 2.4 in the rate of India

Low birth rates are also those of Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh

Well the poverty level (population below the poverty line) of Kerala is 12% of the population, that of Tamil is 17% and that of Himachal is 9.5% compared with an average of 29 nazioanle, 8% with peaks of 53.5% in Bihar and 48.7% of Chattisgarh.

As for the female literacy instead, compared to a national average of 65.5%, Kerala has a rate of 92%, 76.6% of the Himachal and Tamil 73.9 while in Bihar is the 53.3% and 60.6% in Chattisgarh.

The data on fertility are inversely proportional: Bihar is 3.6%, in Chattisgarh is 2.7%, in Kerala and Himachal is 1.8% and 1.7% is in Tamil.

In short, the birth rate is higher where there is more poverty and less education.