Muslims score on infant mortality, sex ratio

MUMBAI: In the demographers'' debate on why Muslim fertility rates have been consistently higher than other communities, experts have concluded that socio-economic factors like poverty, status of women and access to education and health care are largely responsible for the higher numbers.
But these don''t account for the full story.
THE X-FACTOR: "Even if you take factors like education and income into account, Muslims have a slightly higher fertility," says demographer Kamala Gupta.
In a recent book, demographers P N Mari Bhat and A J Francis Zavier pointed out that the fertility of Muslims is higher than the bottom-most groups in the caste hierarchy, namely scheduled castes and tribes.
The National Family Health Survey 1998-99 shows the Muslim fertility rate to be 3.59 compared to scheduled tribes'' 3.06. It also cites two studies in Karnataka andGujarat in 1995 which showed Muslims with higher fertility after accounting for education, land, income, media exposure and female autonomy.
What could make the difference? Contraceptive practice and marriage age, say some experts. While 49 per cent of Hindus use contraception, only 37 per cent of Muslims do (in fact, both figures are lower than other communities like Christians and Jains).
Apart from tradition, one reason for this could be the government''s emphasis on sterilisation, an unacceptable formof contraception for Muslims.
SONS & DAUGHTERS: An interesting and little explored fact is that Muslims have lower infant and child mortality rates than Hindus, as well as higher sex ratios.
The infant mortality rate among Muslims is 59 per 1,000 compared to 77 among Hindus, while child mortality rates are 83 and 107 respectively, says economist Sriya Iyer in a recent study.
And while female infant mortality rates are higher among Hindus, there is only a slight gender gap amongMuslims. These stats suggest that Muslims take better care of their children and don''t have suchanaversion to daughters.
BOMB HOAX: Experts are unanimous about one thing. The so-called Islamic demographic bomb—which was talked about as recently as last year when the Indian Council for Social ScienceResearch released a book warning that Hindus would become a minority in five decades—is hogwash.
According to Bhat and Zavier, even after taking into account migration, mortality, fertility, and religious conversions, the future populations of Hindus and Muslims just won''t be comparable.
"Even assuming that Hindu fertility rates reach replacement level by 2021-''26, and Muslims reach it ten years later, the population of Hindus will still increase to 1,270 million in 2101, while the population of Muslims will at the most touch 320 million."
DOES ANYONE CARE?: This suggests that experts have been spending much time crunching figures no one cares about.
It''s enough to know that a synergy of factors make Muslim fertility rates higher, just as they do other marginalised groups, so that solutions tackle all of them by increasing education, standards of living and coming up with flexible family planning, says Gupta.