Social Justice and the Demographic Transition: Lessons from India's Kerala State

Abstract

Kerala is a small, densely crowded state in South India. It is a poor state, even by Indian standards. Its per capita income of US$80 lies well below the all-India average of US$120, and it suffers from the lowest per capita caloric intake in India. Nevertheless, Kerala has managed to achieve the demographic transition from high (premodern) to low (modern) birth and death rates-something no other Indian state has been able to attain. Indeed, the magnitude of Kerala's fertility decline-the birth rate fell from 39 in 1961 to 26.5 in 1974-has never before been observed in a nation with comparable levels of income and undernutrition. Other indices of Kerala's soical development are equally surprising: levels of literacy, life expectancy, female education, and age at marriage are the highest in India, while mortality rates, including infant and child mortality, are the lowest among Indian states. But Kerala's anomalous and unexpected demographic trends and levels are not the result of the direct interventions designed to influence health and fertility levels elsewhere in India-conventional strategies of population control and health services delivery that thus far are notable for their failure to generate such positive results. Instead, Kerala's demographic levels evidently reflect a broad social response to structural reforms in its political economy.

Information and Communication Technologies for Development: The Bottom of the Pyramid Model in Practice

“…Kerala, the state where Akshaya has been implemented, is a particularly interesting state in which to investigate ICT and development. It is well known for the strength of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) in the 180 state government, and for sustained social mobilization tied to high levels of social development (Ratcliffe, 1978;Parayil, 1992;Rammohan, 2000). 5 The state government maintains strong ties with civil society, particularly since peasants and workers played an active role in shaping the 185 structures and institutions of modern capitalism within the state (Heller, 1999).…”

Revolution, war and modernization: Population policy and fertility change in Iran

“…There was also stress on greater equity, and apparently some success in achieving this end. A number of theorists have argued that equitable distribution of the fruits of development is not unrelated to the fertility declines in places such as Kerala, Sri Lanka and Costa Rica (Ratcliffe 1978;Nag 1985;Caldwell 1986). …”

Pathways to Low Fertility in India

“…Demographers and development scholars have studied Kerala's development trajectory to understand how high educational and health outcomes are possible at lower levels of economic development (Caldwell, 1986;Krishnan, 1976;Nag, 1984;Nair, 1974;Ratcliffe, 1978;Sen, 1999;Zachariah, 1984;Zachariah et al, 1994). Kerala's per capita income was approximately USD $275 in the late 1990s while the state's life expectancy was 74 years for women and 69 years for men, and the state's infant mortality rate was 14 out of 1000 live births (Nath et al, 1998).…”