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> But demographers have long shown that what really counts is girls’ education.

Interesting, they mention JUST education as the deciding factor. Would it not be education AND birth control?

I think the point is, birth control usage is dependent on education rather than how hard it is to get. And maybe it is easy to get in India, I have no idea.

Difficulty accessing birth control is greatly overstated by UN and other development agencies.

In surveys by far the dominant reasons for not using it are "my husband does not want me to" or "my family does not want me to". Those are included in "unable to access".

Traditionally, female years of education, child mortality, and GDP per capita (in order of importance) explain 85% of fertility, and the residual is not biased in either direction.

source: Lant Pritchett, long-time development economist.

Edit: I don't think anyone outside the Taliban seriously wants to reverse the trends in any of those 3 factors.

Robin Hanson on the first, incentivized with the ability to sell shares in your child.

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