Data of 5th round of NFHS has been released recently.
About
Key findings:
According to NFHS-5, 23.3% women surveyed got married before attaining the legal age of 18 years, down from 26.8% reported in NFHS-4.
The figure for underage marriage among men is 17.7% (NFHS-5) and 20.3% (NFHS-4).
Tripura has seen the largest jump in marriages under the legal age of 18 years for women from 33.1% (NHFS-4, conducted 2015-1) to 40.1%, and from 16.2% to 20.4% among men.
West Bengal, along with Bihar, remains one of the states with highest rate of underage marriages.
In Bihar, while it has come down, that reduction is marginal: from 42.5% (NFHS-4) to 40.8% (NFHS-5) for women, and 35.3% to 30.5%, respectively, for men.
Some of the biggest gains in improving legal marriage have been seen in
Chhattisgarh, where underage marriages have come down from 21.3% to 12.1% among women and from 26.9% to 16.2% among men;
Haryana (19.4% to 12.5% for women, and 23.9% to 16% for men);
Madhya Pradesh (32.4% to 23.1% for women),
Rajasthan (35.5% to 25.5% among women, 35.7% to 28.2% for men).
Teenage pregnancies are down from 7.9% to 6.8%.
According to NFHS-5, women who are employed are more likely to use modern contraception.
The data says 66.3% women who are employed use a modern contraceptive method, compared with 53.4% women who are not employed.
Total Fertility Rates, an average number of children per women, has declined from 2.2 (NHFS-4) to 2.0 at the national level.
The Survey says only five states are above replacement level of fertility of 2.1: Bihar (2.98), Meghalaya (2.91), Uttar Pradesh (2.35), Jharkhand (2.26) Manipur (2.17).
Institutional births have increased substantially from 79% to 89%.
About the NFHS Survey
NFHS is released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW). But the MOHFW designated the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, as the nodal agency.
The IIPS is responsible for providing coordination and technical guidance for the survey.
5 rounds of National Family Health Surveys (NFHS) have been conducted so far in India.
The first one was conducted in 1992-93.
Every National Family Health Survey (NFHS) has two specific goals to fulfil. These are
To provide essential data needed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and other agencies for informed decision-making and policy and programme intervention purposes.
To provide insight regarding important emerging health and family welfare issues.