Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Thursday urged Indian families to have three children each, aligning himself with billionaire-investor Elon Musk and the Chinese Communist Party on concerns about declining population.
Bhagwat warned about the long-term risks from the current trend of declining birth rates and said, “in the national interest, every family should have three children and limit themselves to that.”
At 1.46 billion, India is the world's most populous nation but the total fertility rate has dropped to less than two children per woman, according to the UN Population Fund's 2025 report. The birth rate (births per woman in India) was three around 2005.
Bhagwat has said the population must remain "controlled, yet sufficient".
In June, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk, who is a big proponent of the global depopulation theory, had said that low birth rate was the primary factor in the fall of Rome and all civilisations.
“People who have kids do need to have 3 kids to make up for those who have 0 or 1 kid or population will collapse,” Musk advocated on X.
Musk is the father of 14 children with five different women, at last count.
“I’m doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis,” he had said in 2022.
Births per woman in the US stands at 1.6, according to World Bank data of 2023. America had a birth rate of three per woman last in the mid-1960s.
In May 2021, the politburo of the Chinese Communist Party adopted a three-child policy, scrapping the two-child policy of 2016. Till 2016, China had a one-child policy.
China was the world’s populous country until 2023, when India surpassed it.
China’s current birth rate (2023) stands at one child per woman. The birth rate was three in the early 1980s.
There has been a continuous, steady fall in the birth rate in these three countries. But there are socio-economic challenges in achieving the objectives.
In India, states such as Bihar, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh continue to have high fertility rates, while others such as Delhi, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have sustained below-replacement fertility.
“This duality reflects differences in economic opportunities, access to healthcare, education levels, and prevailing gender and social norms,” according to the United Nations Population Fund.
A 2025 World Population Report survey covering 14,000 respondents identified job insecurity, housing constraints and lack of reliable childcare as big reasons deterring families in India from having more children.
Infertility, anxiety about the future, and family pressure were other reasons.
In China as well, high cost of living and life pressures have been identified as factors that have made couples apprehensive about the three-child policy.
The Xi Jinping government has adopted tax deductions, expanded childcare services and optimised leave policies to support childcare to help the three-child policy.
The US and India don't have a three-child policy, but Musk and Bhagwat have another thing in common – they are both very powerful people who can sway government policies.