Regional analysis of one child family ideation and reality in India as a possible determinant of future fertility trends

Numerous states in India now exhibit sub-replacement fertility. In consequence, as elsewhere in East Asia, one-child-families must be in evidence in India. Very little work has been done so far on identifying and examining one child families in India (cf Basu and Desai 2010).
In this paper, we examine data regarding planned fertility and fertility ideals in the National Family Health Survey [NFHS-III], 2005-06. We found that only about 3% of families are one child families, and that two-thirds of these one child families are one son families. However, a large proportion of never married women and men who are mostly below age 30 desire small families with only one child. Indeed, one in every six never married women and one in every seven never married men report a preference for a one child family, with most of not particular about sex of the child. We found a high correlation between ideal family size of one and one child family outcomes, which implies that once these surveyed never married women/men marry and enter the reproductive span, we may find a sizeable increase in the number of one child families. We suggest this could be a useful input into forecasting fertility in Indian states.