Two incomes, no cradle: what India’s DINK couples are telling policymakers

At wedding receptions across the country, the question that follows the blessings has not changed in decades: ‘Any good news?’ What has changed is the answer. A growing number of young couples now reply with a polite smile and a firm no.

They draw two salaries, share an EMI, and have decided, for now or for good, that a child is not part of the plan. Social media calls them DINKs, short for double income, no kids, and the numbers suggest this is more than a fad.

The sample registration system report for 2023 places India’s total fertility rate at 1.9, below the replacement level of 2.1. Eighteen states and Union Territories are already under that line, with Tamil Nadu at 1.3 and Delhi at 1.2. Even a decade ago, the National Family Health Survey of 2015 to 2016 found about 7% of married women aged 40 to 49 had no children.

A growing alphabet of households

DINK is only the best-known entry in a lengthening list. DINKYs have double income and no kids yet, but plan to have them later. DISKs, with double incomes and a single kid, fill urban apartment complexes, while DEWKs, dual-employed with kids, juggle careers and school runs. SINKs live on a single income with no kids, GINKs (green inclination, no kids) cite climate anxiety, and DINKWADs have swapped a baby for a dog.

Then there is the wry SITCOM: single income, two children, oppressive mortgage. The acronyms are playful, yet together they map the trade-offs couples make among money, time and care. The DINKY category deserves special attention, because postponement can quietly harden into permanence as age catches up with intention.

Why couples are opting out

It is tempting to dismiss this as a generation that prefers travel to toddlers. The evidence says otherwise. In the UNFPA State of World Population 2025 survey, Indian respondents named financial limitations (38%), housing constraints (22%), and job insecurity (21%) as the leading reasons they have had or expect to have fewer children than they wanted.

School fees, coaching classes and private healthcare have turned child-rearing into a 20-year financial project. A modest flat near the IT corridors of Chennai or Bengaluru swallows a large share of two salaries. The burden falls hardest on women.

The Periodic Labour Force Survey 2025 puts urban female labour force participation at just 27.7%, and 44.4% of women outside the workforce cite childcare, homemaking, or personal commitments as reasons.

Add long commutes, always-available jobs, ageing parents and later marriages, and the DINK decision looks less like indulgence and more like a rational response to a system that makes parenting expensive and lonely.

The economic ledger

For the economy, DINK households are a mixed blessing. They save more, spend generously and pay substantial taxes. In the long run, though, the arithmetic changes. The share of Indians aged 60 and above has already risen to 9.7% nationally and 15% in Kerala.

The southern states will age first, and several of their chief ministers have publicly urged couples to have more children, partly over concerns about delimitation. South Korea offers a cautionary tale: despite years of generous incentives, its fertility rate slid to 0.72 in 2023. Once fertility falls, cash handouts alone rarely reverse it. DINK couples also face a quieter risk: without children to lean on, they will need reliable pensions and elder care, services India has barely begun to regulate.

Way forward

Policy should not pressure couples into parenthood. It should remove the barriers facing those who want children and secure the futures of those who do not. The creche mandate for establishments with fifty or more employees needs real enforcement, and states can partner with industry on shared daycare in states' industrial parks and Global Capability Centre hubs. Statutory paternity leave for the private sector, alongside shared parental leave, would stop caregiving from falling entirely on mothers.

The new Income Tax Rules, 2026, have finally raised the children’s education allowance exemption from ₹100 to ₹3,000 per child per month, and the hostel allowance to ₹9,000. Yet the relief sits only in the old regime, which most salaried taxpayers are abandoning.

A child-linked deduction within the new regime would ensure the benefit reaches the families it is meant for. Affordable rental housing near job hubs and insurance coverage for fertility treatment under the assisted reproductive technology law would help couples who start late.

For those who remain childfree by choice, India needs regulated senior living and a working reverse mortgage market. The question at the wedding reception may never go away. The more useful question is one for the state: what would make good news easier to share?

Saravanan is a professor of finance and accounting at IIM Tiruchirappalli, and Williams is head of India at Sernova Financial. Views are personal.zing