More From Our Geographers

Read more of our interview with Dr. Jayati Ghosh on India's population, and the importance of gender equity to sustainable development in India.

The rural to urban migration -- the government has been promoting policies in trying to reduce it. However, one important problem that rural India faces is very high population growth. And with that high population growth, especially in the village area of Madhya Pradesh, in Central India and in upper, and in Northern India. The population growth rate is very high. Especially in the rural areas and, as a result of that, unemployment, underemployment, these are chronic problems so there is always going to be the rural to urban migration, no matter how effectively the government tries to promote different policies and tries to bring the migration rate down.

So, it is going to be a problem unless something else, which is your population issue, is also addressed and more emphasis is placed on that. So, we need to think more from a holistic point of view, not just providing access to water or enabling the farmers to have water buffalos and maybe increase their income through that or through green revolution technology but through population control and land reform is also an important element that we need to think about.

We just had a census in 2001 and India has over a billion people right now. So it's really ranked number two after China. So it is likely by the year 2025, it's likely to reach or even surpass China… And that's a huge dilemma for this country, especially in the context of, you know, in terms of population growth…

[T]he rapid growth is really taking place in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar in northeast India and also in Madhya Pradesh the birth rate is quite high. Madhya Pradesh is the state where Dikhatpura is located. And the rural rates are much higher than the urban rates. And also, in these states, the female literacy rate is extremely low. And, as a result of the lower female literacy rate, obviously we are looking at higher population growth. So, if we want to control and promote -- control population growth and promote the development of rural India, rural literacy rate is something that has to be addressed for the country to make progress, both within an urban and rural context.

[G]ender and development is very so closely tied, women and development. And the stage where, Southern states, actually, have made more progress in terms of women's access to land or women's access to knowledge about population control, female literacy rate, and one of the best examples of that is the state of Kerala. Kerala has achieved a birth rate [total birth rate] which is the number of children women will have during their reproductive years. It is actually comparable to a lot of northwest European countries. It has made remarkable progress…

[T]he different ways Kerala has been successful in bringing in that fertility down is through education. They have schools in the villages. They have essentially empowered women through higher female literacy rate and that has helped to bring the total fertility rate down. The other issue in terms of Kerala is that it has also had a communist government so, in some ways, that's sort of deviating away from the normal trend that you find in the country.

But education of women has been critical in Kerala and I don't recall the exact statistics at this point but I think that 80 to 90% of the women have some level of education. And education, of course, as we know, is the main tool, is the best contraceptive or main tool to control population growth and in some ways the other adjacent southern states have also been successful in tackling the problem of a population growth in those areas. But not as successful as Kerala. Access to health care is also very important. If you have hospitals in the villages, that essentially means that, if the parents know that they can take these kids to the hospital, and as a result of that, infant mortality rate goes down, then parents are less likely to have the need to have more kids or children because they know that, "If I have two and they will survive and they will lead a successful life, he'll lead a successful life," then that itself is going to bring the fertility rate down. So I would say education, access to health care…in other words, accessibility. To education, to health care, has been the two most critical issues in Kerala.

The government has to do a lot more in trying to bridge the gap between men and women, starting with female literacy rate, female labor force participation rate, access to better jobs, better pay, as well as control over land…. Young girls and female literacy rate in rural India is very much affected by how many younger siblings they have and whether they are needed to help with the younger siblings, whether they are needed to help with the household chores…it again is different. That presents a lot of challenges, not just now.

A lot of these young girls, the young girls as shown in the video, may have the desire to go to school. They may see their brothers going to school, older brothers or younger brothers, but they may have been denied going to school because, from a parent's perspective, once they get married, they go away from the families, they don't bring anything back in terms of economic- there's no economic return. And, as a result, why invest when the girl gets married? First of all, I may have to pay dowry from a parent's point of view and this young girl is not going to bring back anything to me so, why invest? Rather, I would invest in a boy's education because that boy is going to take care of me when I'm old. So there are many of those limitations that do, in some ways, prevent these young, many young girls in rural India, to reach their optimum.