By Dr Mayur Trivedi
Meghalaya’s matrilineality portrays the popular imagination of female empowerment as a progressive outlier in India’s patriarchal landscape. Yet the state has the second-highest total fertility rate (TFR) and one of the lowest rates of contraceptive use nationally. While most Indian states were below replacement fertility (around 2) by the 5th round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) in 2019-21, Meghalaya’s TFR of 2.9 was just behind Bihar’s. The recently released NFHS-6 (2023-24) estimates indicated that Meghalaya remained among the second highest at 2.2 (2.4 in rural areas), tied with Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. Meghalaya’s comparison with its Christian-majority, constitutionally protected tribal neighbours like Nagaland (identical to Meghalaya at 3.7 in 2005-06, now 2.0) and Mizoram (1.6) shows that Meghalaya’s slower change is a structural issue rather than one attributable to geography, religion, or tribal identity.
The problem of extended fertility beyond young age
When discussing fertility transition, demographers emphasize the importance of the quantum of fertility (the total number of children) and the tempo (the timing and pattern of childbearing throughout a woman’s life). In most Indian states, the transition involved fewer children and earlier childbearing, mainly in the twenties. NFHS data across various rounds (1992-2021) shows that Meghalaya’s pattern features a long, flat plateau, with childbearing remaining elevated well into the thirties and forties. In NFHS-5, the fertility rate for women aged 30-34 years in Meghalaya was more than double that of Bihar and 10 times the national average for women aged 40-44 years. This is confirmed starkly by contraceptive data. In NFHS-6 (2023-24), modern contraceptive use among currently married women in Meghalaya continues to be the lowest of any Indian state (30%, with an insufficient improvement over 23% in NFHS-5 (2019-21), against a national average of 53%, a slight decline from previous estimates of 56%.
Female sterilization, the method through which most Indian women signal that their family is complete, stands at just 7% in Meghalaya, compared with 37% nationally (NFHS-6). While women with four or more children in the rest of India are far more likely to have adopted contraception, NFHS -5 indicated that contraceptive use among women in Meghalaya who already have four or more children was identical to the state’s overall average of 23%, indicating no changes in reproductive behaviour with increasing parity.
The matrilineal paradox
The inheritance rule that passes property to the youngest daughter leaves the other children economically vulnerable. The traditional role of the maternal uncle, who historically provided economic protection to his sister’s household, has been eroding for decades under the combined pressures of changing norms. Current manifestation in the Khasi and Jaintia communities has rendered women with only token authority, and men the de facto powerholders with limited accountability. Meghalaya, especially in the Khasi and Jaintia regions, experiences a complex mix of situations involving polygyny, single mothers, including out-of-wedlock adolescents living with their parents, and female-headed households, leading to negative consequences for women and children born from these unions
Meghalaya has the highest rate of polygynous marriages of any Indian state (6% in 2019-21, up from 4% in 2015-16). East Jaintia Hills recorded a polygyny rate of 20% — the highest of any district in India. Polygyny stems from men’s lack of marital accountability and weak legal enforcement within the indigenous system. Matrilineal norms assume women’s self-sufficiency in managing households and children, enabling men to withdraw from caregiving and financial roles without repercussions. Consequently, women face abandonment, are legally unprotected, and are burdened with full caregiver roles. Driven not by empowerment but by such abandonment, 41% of households in Meghalaya were female-headed in 2019-21, more than double the national average of 18%. In the absence of spousal support and adequate social protection, and with children as their primary old-age safety net, limiting family size becomes economically irrational. Contraception is not the missing piece here; what is lacking are legal accountability, financial security, and social protection. The consequences are intergenerational. Despite recent improvement, more than one in three children is stunted in 2023-24, the worst performance of any Indian state. Stunting exceeded 55% among children born to mothers who have already had five or more children in 2019-21.
What will change this?
The Meghalaya Health Policy 2021 recognizes gender inequality and poverty as root causes and advocates for birth spacing as a health right and women’s economic empowerment. However, addressing the vicious cycle where women lack economic and reproductive autonomy requires more concerted efforts, as this affects decisions on contraception, antenatal care, childcare, and access to food and nutrition, leading to intergenerational deprivations. Family planning outreach must reach older, high-parity women whose continued childbearing is the primary driver of Meghalaya’s elevated TFR, and whose unmet need is for limiting methods. Abandoned women potentially cannot seek maintenance or child support unless there is documentation. The resulting lack of economic security often results in high fertility rates. To address this, the health system must raise awareness of the Meghalaya Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act 2012, alongside community-based legal literacy initiatives. The health system must also anchor the targeted extension of social protection schemes to female-headed, high-parity households. Lastly, men, who currently bear no measurable contraceptive burden despite the rising polygyny, must be drawn into reproductive accountability to ensure gender equality envisaged in the health policy.
While Meghalaya’s fertility decline in NFHS 6 is encouraging, it may remain somewhat superficial unless policies address the structural drivers of continued childbearing, namely weak legal accountability, economic insecurity for women, and low male responsibility. True gender equality will require combining reproductive health services with enforceable legal protections and social protection measures that make limiting family size a viable and safe choice.
(The author Dr Mayur Trivedi, is a professor at the Azim Premji University, Bhopal)
