>>214043428
What is even more striking is that the largest urban areas in India have East Asian tier fertility, e.g., Calcutta had a 1.2 fertility rate all the way back in 2019 and possibly below 1 now. It's quite likely the current nationwide fertility as of 2024 is like ~1.8 and declining very rapidly, although hard to know exactly since India is very bad at releasing birth statistics
To put it into perspective, China had a fertility rate of 1.8 as late as 2017. China's GDP per capita in 2017 was $15000 ($9000 nominal). India's today is $11000 ($3000 nominal). By the time India reaches China 2017 levels of development (probably 2030 or so) it's entirely possible their TFR will be below 1.5. So the problem of "growing old before growing rich" will probably be more acutely felt in India than China especially if they both converge to an ultralow fertility of ~1 as seems to be the norm in Asian societies and especially if India's growth continues to be strictly below China's at equivalent level of development, which seems likely