Syed Mohammad Talha says he is proud that his seven-year-old daughter studies in a prestigious Montessori school in India’s National Capital Region.
The school is expensive, with an annual fee of 255,000 rupees ($3,113), but the Muslim businessman says he is happy he can afford it.
“If I had another child, I could not send them both to this school,” said Talha, 42, who lives in Noida, a satellite city adjacent to New Delhi.
“Having just one child, we can focus on him, give him a good education, a lot of facilities, there are many advantages.”
Talha’s joy at having a smaller family underscores a growing trend among India’s minority Muslims, who have long been known for large families with the highest population growth rates among India’s religious communities.
As India is set to overtake China this month and become the world’s most populous country, its shrinking Muslim households underscore the success of its decades-old population control programs and signal demographic stability, experts said.
Reuters spoke to six Muslim men and women as well as seven community leaders, population experts and Islamic scholars. All agreed that there has been a significant increase in awareness among Indian Muslims about birth control and family planning.