Kerala will have fewer and fewer children going by recent trends in fertility and mortality rates. With many schools here already short of students, a worse situation should be expected, warn demographers. The fertility rate in the state has been on a decline over the past 20 years. The Crude Birth Rate (CBR) per thousand in a population was 43.9 during 1951-61 but had decliend to 28.1 during 1971-81.Correspondingly, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) per woman declined from 5.6 children to 3.4, according to a study undertaken by the Centre for Development Studies (CDS).