CRED’s Kunal Shah shares ‘bizarre’ speculation: ‘Data speed related to decline in birth rate’ | Trending
CRED founder Kunal Shah took to X to share a “conjecture” about mobile internet data and the decline in birth rate in India. In a post, which has over 30,000 views, Shah posed a hypothesis that the high speed internet date availability in India is leading to low fertility rate. CRED founder Kunal Shah posed a hypothesis that the high speed internet date availability in India is leading to low fertility rate.(Instagram/@kunalb11) “Conjecture: data speed in a community is correlated to decline in birth rate,” he said in his post on X. (Also read: CRED founder Kunal Shah slammed for ‘mediocre people’ remark) Is internet speed related to birth rate?India’s fertility rate which is calculated as the number of children birthed a woman is currently at 2.01 children per woman. This is slightly behind the ideal rate of 2.1 children per woman even though India has the highest population in the world with over 1.45 billion people. The rate at which babies are born in India has declined gradually. From 2014 to 2024, the population growth dropped from 1.27% to 0.89%. Additionally, India’s fertility rate fell from 2.31 children per woman in 2014 to 2.01 in 2024. In the same period of time, internet penetration in country has shot up. According to Stata, it has nearly quadrupled from 13.5% in 2014 to 52.4% in 2024. Reports suggest that with the introduction of the 5G services internet speeds have increased over 80% in the last 10 years. However, this does not mean that the high internet speed is responsible for the birth rate decline. The two factors have not been proven to be inversely proportional in any studies so far. How the internet reactedWhile many were surprised the CRED founder’s take labelling the correlation as “bizarre”, some agreed that internet use might have had an effect on India’s population growth. (Also read: CRED founder Kunal Shah worked as a delivery agent, Sanjeev Bikhchandani reveals) “True. As communities develop and access technology increases, factors like education and career opportunities tend to reduce birth rates,” said one user, while another added, “That’s an interesting take! If faster data leads to smarter choices, maybe it’s a win-win for society.” Some pointed out that similar birth rate decline was witnessed in most developed nations and as India becomes more developed, it mirrors similar trends. “It’s rather GDP per capita & social security,” read one comment. Others took a more humorous approach to the conjecture. “Are you saying if I upgrade my wifi speed, my odds of becoming a father reduce?” joked a user.
