New Delhi, June 17 -- India's demographic story has taken the country by storm, especially since The Economist, as part of a cover story this month, highlighted that the country's fertility rate was falling below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. Around the same time, initial results from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2023-24 showed that India's total fertility rate was 2.0, and the data from the Sample Registration System showed an even lower figure of 1.9 for 2024.

This is not unusual, given the decline in fertility rates worldwide over the past decade. Yet India's situation-low fertility co-existing with low female labour force participation-is puzzling, as highlighted by the magazine. This contradicts the co...