The Historical Roots of Very Low Fertility in Urban West Bengal

Calcutta in West Bengal currently has the lowest TFR (1.2) in India. Our paper explores the reasons for this.
We are particularly interested in the recency of the phenomenon. Could this this extremely low fertility be the continuation and accentuation of a trend that has more historical roots?
We use a variety of direct and indirect methods to ask if certain groups in urban West Bengal had low fertility well before the advent of either an aggressive population policy or the socioeconomic changes that possibly explain the currently low fertility of younger women. If so, who are these low fertility women from the past? Preliminary analysis suggests that they belong to the highest socioeconomic groups. Secondly, we draw some conclusions from the unusually high levels of traditional contraception use in the state. Thirdly, we speculate about the motivations for the early fertility decline in these socioeconomic groups. We focus especially on the special status of Calcutta as the seat of colonial power. This encouraged the spread of western style education and propagated a new ideology of marriage in which women of the upper classes were to be seen as wives and companions rather than as housewives and mothers.