For decades, India worried about having too many people. Population control, family planning and the spectre of unchecked demographic growth shaped public policy and political debate. Now the country confronts a reversal that should provoke not panic, but serious thought: India’s fertility rate has fallen below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. The significance lies not in an imminent population collapse. India will continue growing for some time because of demographic momentum. Nor should falling fertility automatically be treated as a national failure.

On the contrary, it reflects profound social change: women are marrying later, receiving more education and exercising greater control over reproduction; families are responding rationally to the rising costs of raising children. The real question is whether India’s institutions have kept pace with this transformation. India’s demographic dividend ~ the economic advantage supposedly conferred by a large working-age population ~ was always presented as a historic opportunity. But a demographic dividend is not a gift. Young people become an economic asset only when they are healthy, educated and productively employed. Otherwise, a large........

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