India's TFR is still > 2.1 (2.33), but is fast approaching replacement fertility. Large parts of India (especially in the South), are already below TFR, so while populations will continue to grow for decades (India has a pyramidal population structure), they will eventually start falling.
Essentially, how many children a woman will give birth to, on average. If it drops below 2, population will begin to shrink.
Edit: As the below comment thread points out, > 2 (~2.1) may be required to not drop. :)
[1] http://www.searo.who.int/entity/health_situation_trends/data...
Say you have 100 females.
25 have no kids 15 have 1 kid 25 have 2 kids each 15 have 3 kids 10 have 4 kids 10 have 5 kids
This would be a 2.0 TFR and would lead to no shrinkage or increase.
The 25 without kids would include those who die before reproducing.
Now a potential reason it might need to be higher than 2.0 is if it is not a 50/50 split between male and female children. I vaguely recall that slightly more male children are born than girls but it averages out by adulthood because boys are slightly more likely to die doing something stupid. This may not actually be the case so do some research before quoting me on the more boys part.
Accidental deaths before having kids
Gay/Lesbian kids
Kids that “want” to have kids but for whatever reason are unable to
Shouldn't "people who don't have kids" be accounted for by lowering the overall measure of "children a woman will give birth to on average"? So if half of women in a country have exactly four kids, and the other half have zero kids for whatever reason, the average number per woman is 2.
Instead, it is calculated by measuring the average number of children born to women at a specific age (e.g. 15, 16..49). Adding all of these up results in the TFR. Thus mortality rates are not included in the TFR.
The opposite is also likely. People may have "accidental" kids, or they could change their mind.
(I still agree that 2.1 is a good approximation, but it is also likely to vary on cultural and natural effects)
TFR is not calculated that way. Instead, it takes women in the child bearing age group (say 15-44 or 15-49), and adds up the age specific fertility rates to calculate the TFR.
What TFR would result in replacement level of the population depends to some extent on mortality rates among women from birth to end of reproductive age, Thus advanced countries may achieve replacement levels at a TFR of 2.05 (say), while countries like India may do so at 2.1, and other countries with higher mortality may do so at 2.3+.
But in normal circumstances you assume that there is an equal number of men and women in population. Or, to be more precise, you assume 105:100 men:women ratio, because that's what statistics show in most countries. That's why you need TFR slighly higher than 2 to have constant population size.
Outside of war/post war its unlikely to have a situation where there are 10 woman to each man.
So you are saying India's new-born gender divide is 91% men and 9% women?
Abortion based on gender is illegal in India. Most (all?) gynecologists in India won't reveal gender due to this until a certain stage (20 weeks) in the pregnancy after which abortion is illegal (requires court order).
https://scroll.in/pulse/834701/one-step-forward-two-back-ind...