Fact-Check: Viral Post Misrepresents Fertility Rate for Muslim Women in India

As per NFHS-5 data, the fertility rate in the Muslim community is 2.36 children per woman.

The viral claim is misleading. It misrepresents the fertility rate for the Muslim community.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

A social media post comparing fertility rates between religious communities in India has gone viral.

The claim: The post provides figures for fertility rates for each religion in India, listing them at 1.94 for Hindus, 4.4 for Muslims, 1.61 for the Sikh community, 1.88 for those following Christianity, 1.6 for Jains and 1.39 for Buddhists.

• Listing these numbers, it tells users that they are "why we need a Population Control Law ASAP (sic)."

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X (formerly Twitter)/Screenshot)

(Archived versions of more posts sharing this claim on social media can be seen here and here.)

But...?: The claim is false as it misrepresents the figure for the Muslim community.

• As per the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5), the total fertility rate in the Muslim community stands at 2.36, and not 4.4 as claimed.

How did we find out the truth?: The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) records data related to fertility by religion in surveys conducted by the government.

The latest report, the NFHS-5, studied the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of India's population over a period of three years from 2019 to 2021.

TFR is defined as the number of children a woman has by the time she ends childbearing.

Table 4.2 of the report lists TFR for women between the ages of 15 and 49, sorted by residence, schooling, and religion.

Here, we saw that the claim listed accurate figures for every religious community apart from the Muslim community.

While the claim states that the TFR for Muslim women is 4.4, in reality, the figure is much lower and stands at 2.36.

The TFR for the Muslim community is 2.36.

(Source: NFHS-5/Altered by The Quint)

• In a 2021 report on the religious composition of India, the Pew Research Center also showed similar figures for the data it had sourced until 2015.

• It mentioned that every religious group had seen a fall in fertility rates, with the Muslim community noting the most drastic decline from 4.4 in 1992, to 2.6 in 2015.

Overall, India's fertility rates have been dropping each decade.

(Source: Pew Research Center/Altered by The Quint)

• In 2022, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat made a similar claim about 'religion-based population imbalance' in India, which we had analysed using government data.

• We had compared TFR by religion as recorded over every NFHS survey, which started in 1992.

• This chart confirms Pew Research Center's observation about an overall decline in fertility.

It also showed that the '4.4 children' figure for the Muslim community was taken from the 1992 survey and is not an accurate basis for comparison in 2024.

Conclusion: A viral social media post misrepresents the fertility rates for the Muslim community in India.

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