According to RTI, the number of births in 2000 stood at 2,03,695. Of these, the number of male children born stood at 1,07,181, while female stood at 96,514.
Here is some good news for a city bursting at its seams. A right to information (RTI) query on the number of births in the city shows a downward trend in the past 10 years, with the total number of births coming down by 25,000 children.
According to RTI, the number of births in 2000 stood at 2,03,695. Of these, the number of male children born stood at 1,07,181, while female stood at 96,514.
In 2009, Mumbai saw 1,75,298 births, out of which 91,355 were males and 83,943 females.
While the general trend of child birth over the past nine years wavers from a marginal 0.5% to a maximum of 2.5%, 2001 saw the maximum fall of 8%, followed by 2009 which saw a slump of 4%.
The good news is that even though the population of women in 2009 (compared to 2000) has declined, there is a marked improvement in the sex ratio in the city.
The total number of male children declined at 14.76% in the last ten years, while the number of female children declined by 13.02%.
This in turn has resulted in an improvement in the ratio of girls from 900 per 1,000 boys in 2000 to 918 in 2009.
“There is a trend showing that parents in the city prefer to have a single child. The reason behind this could be the changing lifestyle, or the fact that it is getting expensive to afford a high quality of life and education for children.
“The two-child family is getting rare and many parents are going for a single child,” said Krishnaraj Rao, a parent and RTI activist.
“It is good that the population is decreasing and the female ratio has improved. But that’s not enough.
Despite a slight improvement, Mumbai’s sex ratio is abysmal,” said Vihar Dhurve, who filed the RTI query.
“Mumbai has shown some improvement in the sex ratio in the last few years, but it is not so significant because it is still much below the ideal ratio of 960 females per 1,000 males in the country,” said AL Sharada, programme director of Population First, an NGO.
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