The potential impact of intermarriage on the population decline of the Parsis of Mumbai, India

The Parsis, a community of Iranian descent, are an important ethno-religious minority group in India. Over the past few decades this group has shown a sharp numerical decline. The Parsis in India are endogamous and children of women married outside the community are traditionally not accepted within the fold. This paper appraises the potential impact of female intermarriage in Parsi population decline in Mumbai. Population projections were made under various assumptions of fertility and intermarriage scenarios. Results show that, given current fertility, acceptance of children of intermarried women would have a negligible impact on stemming the population decline, which is driven chiefly by extremely low fertility. 1 Mumbai was known as Bombay till 1995. We have used Bombay for the period before this date. 2 Corresponding author. MBBS SM, Doctoral Student, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Ave, Boston MA,02115 USA. E-mail: [email protected]. Tel: +1-617-331-5164, Fax +1617-432-6733. 3 PhD, Assistant Professor of Demography, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Ave, Boston MA, 02115 USA. E-mail: [email protected]. Tel: +1-617-432-6731 Shroff & Castro: Intermarriage and Parsi population decline 546 http://www.demographic-research.org