5. Population_KING_R_QUEEN_P

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Geography (Optional) 2021

PART: 5
POPULATION
By Himanshu Sharma
POPULATION Lecture - Note - 1
Introduction:
The environmentalist concerns that are in fashion today owe their origin in modern sense to the
works of Thomas Robert Malthus. In the publication – “An essay on the principles of population”, he
was the first to claim the nexus between the population and the resource and propounded a
population theory that seeks a natural law governing the growth of population.
Major theories of population growth:

1. Malthus’ Theory of Population:
In his “Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)” Malthus argued that because of the strong
attraction of the two sexes, the population could increase by multiples, doubling every twenty-five
years. He contended that the population would grow disproportionately with respect to food
production which eventually leads to food insufficiency. That is the human capacity for reproduction
exceeds the rate at which the subsistence from the land can be increased. Malthus, further wrote
‘Population when unchecked increases in a geometrical ratio while the subsistence increases only
in an arithmetical ratio.
According to him, the gap between the food supply and population will continue to grow over time.
Even though the food supply will increase, it would be insufficient to meet the needs of expanding
population. Moreover, the famine and other natural calamities cause widespread sufferings and
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increase the death rate which is the nature’s check against IAS
the growing population.
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He was a deterministic and followed an empirical approach based on the experience of Western
Europe. He inferred a close relationship between population growth and other demographic
processes on one hand and socio-economic changes on the other.
In brief, Malthus theory states that:
1. Population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence.

2. Population invariably increases where means of subsistence is plenty unless prevented
by some very powerful and obvious checks.
3. These checks, which repress the superior power of population and keep its effects on a
level with the means of subsistence, are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice and
misery.
Malthus based his above arguments on man’s two basic characteristics essential to the maintenance
of life:
1. The need for food, and
2. The passion between sexes.
It was the second which led people to marry at a relatively early age and that would result in a large
number of births that the population would double itself in a few years if unchecked by misery and
vice.
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Malthus referred to two classes of checks which kept the population low:
1. Positive means: He spoke of famine (hunger), disease or war, pestilence and vicious customs
about women.
2. Negative means: He explicitly demanded artificial means of birth control and suggested an
alternative that birth rate be decreased through preventive measures such as late marriage
(postponing marriage until later age), moral restraint, and chastity (abstinence). He contended
that without such restraints the world would face widespread hunger, poverty and misery.
The ‘positive’ and ‘preventive’ checks which control excessive population growth will increase
mortality and decrease fertility respectively. Malthus saw the tension between population and
resource as a major cause of the misery of much of the humanity. He was not, however, in favor of
contraceptive methods, since, their use did not generate the same drive to work hard as would a
postponement of marriage.
Malthus argued that the positive and preventive checks are inversely related to each other. In other
words, where positive checks are very effective, the preventive checks are relatively less effective
and vice versa.
However, in all societies, some of these checks are in constant operation although in varying
magnitude of effectiveness. Malthus believed that despite these checks, the relatively slow growth
of food supply to keep abreast of population growth always results in some kind of a situation of
overpopulation.
Criticism:
1. The validity of his two sets of ratios has been questioned by his critics. It is argued that population
has rarely grown in geometrical
arithmetic progression.
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proportion and meansIAS
of production have rarely multiplied in
2. Malthus overemphasized the ‘positive’ checks and did not visualize the role of ‘preventive’
checks like contraceptives and family planning. Neo-Malthusians argued for the adoption of
birth control within marriage. Human inventions in the fields of birth control, health and nutrition
and agriculture have helped to a great extent to strike a balance between human reproduction
and food supply.
3. Malthus was also severely criticized for ignoring the role of changing technology and the
consequent transformation in the socio-economic set-up of a society. He did not fully appreciate
the extent to which improved agricultural technology and crop fertilization could sustain large
population.
4. Both the positive checks of hunger and disease referred to by Malthus do not operate today,
except the terrible disasters sometimes caused by Tsunami, cyclone and floods or rains in
desert areas like Barmer and Jaisalmer in August 2006. But catastrophe of this nature is
immediately noticed and help rushed to the affected place from surplus areas all over the
world. A marked decline in the death rate even in the developing countries is a significant fact
to be noted in this context.
5. Moreover, natural calamities referred to above have occurred in under-populated areas also
and thus there was no causal relationship between positive checks and overpopulation.
6. Malthus also failed to realize even the biological limitations that a population cannot grow
beyond a certain limit.
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7. Marxist geographers have criticized him for ignoring the role of varying consumption rate in
determining the population- resource ratio across the world.
Neo-Malthusian:
This term was first used in 1877 by Dr. Samuel van Houten. In general, Neo-Malthusians are the
people who share the similar views as that of Malthus. They argue that since world’s resources are
limited, there are natural limits to the number of people that the earth can support with a reasonable
standard of living. This limit is the world’s carrying capacity. The idea of carrying capacity of world
has been further elaborated in recent time in the concept of ‘Limits to Growth’ which tries to
establish the relationship between population and resource development in modern perspective.
Although they support the Malthusian view, it is different from the conventional Malthusian theory:-
(1) Neo-Malthusians explicitly identifies the working class with problem of over-population. The
over- crowded industrial slums were identified as the sites of moral degeneration and hotspots
of population growth.
(2) Another aspect is that it explicitly stresses on birth control methods (preventive checks)
including the use of contraceptives. Neo-Malthusians saw that increased aid from the developed
to developing world would create even bigger problems of population than solving it because
Malthusian principles propose a direct relation between resource growth and population
growth. Thus, foreign aid will lead to even larger population. Thus, it is necessary to promote
birth control measures to prevent the scenario of overpopulation
(3) They have expanded the concept of resources. Malthus was primarily concerned with
subsistence
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i.e. food resources while neo-Malthusian take into account all types of resources including mineral
and energy resources. MORE THAN A COACHING.....
Like Malthus, they also hold the static view of resources and it still forms the basis of neo-Malthusian
assertion. Thus, they also have only limited belief in the role of technological development in
resource growth.
Criticism: Pessimistic view of resources à Example of Saudi Arabia expanding their economy into
diverse sectors like airlines, tourism industry etc., despite being located in the desert .
2. Thomas Doubleday’s Diet Theory:

Thomas Doubleday, a social philosopher and an English economist, was born in 1790. He expressed
his views regarding various natural laws which govern the population. According to him, the rate of
population increase will be less when the quantity of food supply is greater.
It means that the increase in population ( or the fecundity) and food supply are inversely related.
Doubleday mentions two states of food supply, i.e., (i) The Plethoric state having good food supply
where the fertility is low, and (ii) the Deplethoric state in which the fertility is high.
According to Doubleday, fertility is affected by leanness in all plants and animals. An overfed plant
can be revived only when the plants are depleted either by ringing the bark or by extreme lopping
or the trenching of the roots.
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Besides, the sterility in plant life is possible when the application of fertilizers is excessive. He also
believes that thin birds or animals give birth to more offsprings, while bulky or fat birds or animals
give birth to less offsprings. Similarly, this is true for trees and plants. Thus, according to him, the
fertility depends on the fatness of living beings.
Moreover, Doubleday also observes that high fertility has been found in those persons who are
vegetarians, or who eat more rice, whereas fertility will be low in non- vegetarian persons.
Doubleday divides society into three groups:
1) The first group includes those who are in a state of affluence and are well supplied with
luxuries. Their number is on the constant decrease. While the number of those who are engaged
in mental or physical activities and are living busy life, is on the increase.
2) The second group consists of the poor people who have less supply of food. Their number is
increasing rapidly. In other words, the constant increase in population is found in the group
where people are supplied with less food. This happens in all societies.
3) The third group has those people who form the mean and median between two opposite
states and who fall under the average income group and those who are reasonably well supplied
with good food or who get a normal diet and do not overwork and yet are not idle. Their
number is stationary.
Doubleday concludes that “it is upon the numerical proportion which these three states bear to
each other in any society that increase or decrease on the whole depends.”
Doubleday is also of the view that, “The rich produce less children as the fertility would be less
amongst them and therefore, the transfer of their wealth will be distributed among a few people.
Over a period of time, it may happen that there is no one as an heir to that property and therefore
this wealth will pass to the children of the poor. Again, when the children become rich, they will
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restrict their families and their wealth IAS
will be gained once again by the poor. Thus, socialism comes
on its own through the automatic distributionMOREofTHwealth
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by ING.....
nature.”
Criticisms of Thomas Doubleday’s Diet Theory:
Thomas Doubleday’s diet theory has been criticized on the following grounds:
1. Doubleday’s observation regarding an inverse relationship between food supply and fertility
has no scientific basis.
2. According to Doubleday, the fertility is low in the plethoric state due to good food supply and
is high in deplethoric state due to food shortage and diminution of proper nourishment.
However, such things have not happened in reality. Even in plethoric state the population goes
on increasing.
3. Doubleday believes that the rich people have fewer children whereas the poor have more. In
reality, this is far from reality, because in many cases we find more children in rich families and
less in the poor ones.
4. Doubleday opines that the number of those persons who get a normal diet and who come
under the average income group remains stationary. But experiences have shown that even in
such an income group the number has always been increasing.
5. Doubleday is of the view that fertility depends on fatness. As the rich persons are fat, fertility
is low with the increase in fatness. In this regard, Spencer has criticized this presumption of
Doubleday. According to him, in reality every rich person may not be always fat.
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Spencer felt that fatness does not fully depend on good food but the root cause of fatness is
bad digestion. At present, the rich persons are more conscious about their health and their
families and with the help of gyms and health clubs and medical facilities, they keep themselves
away from fat and maintain health.
6. Doubleday is of the opinion that socialism will come on its own through the automatic
distribution of wealth by nature. This argument does not have any scientific support and thus,
it cannot be said to be true.
7. In Doubleday’s diet theory, there is confusion between fertility and fecundity. While criticising
the theory of Doubleday, Thompson and Lewis have said that there is no scientific basis for the
belief that the proportion of protein in the diet or the relative abundance of the intake of
calorie has any noticeable effect upon fecundity. The actual bearing of living children, that is
fertility of any population, may be affected substantially by the use of contraceptives as
preventive checks while the fecundity remains unchanged.
3. Jouse De Castro’s Protein Consumption Theory:

Jouse De Castro expressed his views in his famous book “The Geography of Hunger” regarding the
correlation between the fertility and the consumption of protein. Castro accepted the findings of
R.J. Solankar who conducted experiments on rats in 1920. In these experiments, Solankar found that
with the increase in protein consumption in the diet, the fecundity will decrease and it will increase
with low protein content in the diet.
His experiment led to the following conclusions:
1. When 10 per cent protein was given to a female rat, per mated female rat gave 23.3 births;
2.
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When 18 percent protein was given to each female rat, per mated female rat gave 17.4 births;
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3. When the quantity of protein was increased to a level of 22 percent to each female rat, the
birth per mated female rat reduced to 13.8 births.
Through these experiments, Castro came to the conclusion that the fatness is affected by the
consumption of protein. The fatness increases with the protein rich diet, which leads to lower
fertility. This concept of Castro is similar to the Doubleday’s diet theory that the rate of population
increase is influenced by the food supply.
Moreover, Castro also found a direct relation between the functioning of the liver and that of the
ovaries.
In the words of Castro, “It is known that there is a direct connection between the functioning of the
liver and the ovaries as the role of the liver is to inactivate the excess estrogens which the ovaries
throw into the blood stream. Fatty degeneration of the liver and the tendency to cirrhosis are some
of the characteristic result of protein deficiency. When degeneration of the liver occurs, it begins to
operate less efficiently, and is less effective at its job of inactivating the excess estrogens. The
result is a marked increase in the women’s reproductive capacity.”
According to Castro, balanced food is not available to the poor and therefore poor people are
always getting less protein in food which results in sluggish liver function. Consequently, when
females have defective liver, the estrogens in women’s body cannot be neutralized, and with the
increase in estrogens the women’s reproductive capacity increases. This results in high birth rate.
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Therefore, compared to the rich, the birth rate in the poor people with chronic hunger (malnutrition)
is high. But, in the case of acute hunger, sexual activity goes down.
According to Castro, people or societies are blamed for the high birth rate in the poor countries,
which is not a proper thing. For this the rich countries or the people of affluent societies should be
blamed, because the imperial or colonial powers have not taken any steps to improve the standard
of living of their people nor have they made attempts to provide good food.
On the contrary, instead of concentrating more on the increase of food production, imperial powers
have concentrated on the purchase of raw materials and food supplies at low rates and finished
products have been sold out at high rates in their colonies.
As a result, due to high prices and low wages, the people’s food intake becomes imbalanced and
they cannot get enough protein content in their diet. With the reduction or absence of protein
contents in their food, the capacity to produce more children increases which ultimately results in
the increase in poverty. When poverty increases, again due to the imbalanced food, people get less
protein, which again leads to the increase in the capacity to produce more children. Such a vicious
cycle goes on.
It was painful for Castro when he observed that adequate attention had not been given to the
problems of the imbalanced food by the rich, the capitalists, the scientists or the imperialists. They
had given importance only to the commercial activities rather than to the social aspects of poverty.
Castro reflected on the issue with reference to India that out of the total number of children born in
India, almost fifty percent suffer from starvation and die before they reach the age of marriage.
On the basis of data for different countries relating to the association of fertility with consumption
of protein, Castro concluded that in 1952 two-third of the world population experienced chronic
hunger, i.e., malnutrition, disease or early death.
According to him, the fertility rates GUIDANCE IAS

can be reduced only if more attention is paid to grow more food
crops than commercial crops which are made MORE THAN A CO
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the poor people. In the words of Castro,
“when deserts of ice and impenetrable jungles are being turned to gardens and orchards, when the
lands we farm and the plants we grow are being made to multiply their yield, and while we are
barely learning how to tap the great food reservoirs of water, the wild flora and of artificial
synthesis, the Malthusians go on setting up their sinister scarecrows. It is nothing to us, since we
have reasons to fear them.”
Castro pointed out that to eradicate chronic hunger, priority should be given to the problem of
balanced food. Efforts should be made to bring more lands under the plough with improved farming
methods and extensive cultivation.
This is only possible through economic development leading to rising income of the poor which
increases their protein consumption.
Criticisms of Jouse De Castro’s Protein Consumption Theory:
1. High fertility has been experienced in many developed countries with the increase of protein
in diet.
2. Scientifically, it cannot be proved that the protein rich diet leads to lower fertility.
3. Fertility always does not increase in poor people because it is not true that chronic hunger will
always give more importance to sex.
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4. In poor countries, the reasons for high birth rate are poverty and imbalanced food. However,
factors like agriculture based economy, social, religious or cultural structure of the society,
education; existence of joint family system, marriage at early age, etc. cannot be ignored in
influencing the population growth.
5. Economists do not accept the view that human fertility depends on diet alone. According to
Coontz, fluctuations in the fertility during the trade cycle cannot be explained in terms of diet.
6. Castro’s view that with the economic development fertility can decline has been criticised by
Leibenstein. According to him, “the reasons why this approach is fallacious is that the economy
might not have experienced sustained development if the fertility rates had not declined at
some crucial stage during the expansion.”
7. Thomson and Lewis have criticised Castro for the relation between diet and fecundity. According
to them, there is no scientific basis for the belief that good diet or relative abundance of
calorie intake has any noticeable effect upon fecundity. Rather, the fertility may be affected by
preventive checks of various kinds, while the fecundity remains unchanged.”
4. Michael Thomas Sadler’s Destiny Theory:

Michael Thomas Sadler, an Economist and British social reformer, was born in 1780. He was a
contemporary of Malthus. He expressed his ideas about population in his book “The Law of
Population”. According to Sadler, the law which regulates the growth of animals and plants is primarily
the same as the law which regulates the growth of human population. He was of the opinion that
“the fecundity of human beings is in the inverse ratio to the condensation of their numbers.”
Moreover, the fertility rate decreases with increase in the density of population. In the agriculture
based or pastoral countries where the density of population is low, the fertility rate of the population
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becomes high. In such countries, people have the capacityIAS
to work hard and hardworking people
give birth to more children. MORE THAN A COACHING.....
With the passing of time, the rate of industrialisation, literacy and the density of population increases.
Here, people would become more civilized and limit the size of family and in such socio-economic
conditions, they will be happier and there will be prosperity.
Sadler was a great critic of Malthus. He did not accept Malthus’s view that population increases in
geometrical progression while food supply increases in arithmetical progression. According to Sadler,
such increase of population and food supply in mathematical terms just cannot happen, because
when population increases, the density too will increase. And when density increases, the capacity
to produce children goes down and thus with the increase in density, the fertility rate declines. He
believed that population adjusts itself with the time.
He did not accept the fear of Malthus that positive checks by nature take place with the growth of
population. He also did not believe in the preventive measures of birth control described by Malthus.
Sadler was very optimistic and he tried to establish a link between population and food supply.
He was of the view that if the fertility rate of population increases, people will be able to produce
food according to their needs and the food supply and population will get adjusted to each other.
Sadler also believed that when the density of population increases the unhealthy atmosphere also
increases which leads to increase in the death rate. Further, if the death rate is high, it will lead to
increase in the birth rate. This happens to compensate for the loss of population. Simlarly, if the
death rate is low, the birth rate also goes down.
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Criticisms of Michael Thomas Sadler’s Destiny Theory:
If we compare Sadler’s theory to the Malthusian theory of population, it can be said that the theory
of Sadler is very optimistic. When Sadler’s book was published in 1830, many economists, sociologists
and demographers were under the spell of pessimism created by Malthus in his population theory.
In such an atmosphere, to give optimistic thoughts itself was a great achievement.
But the theory of Sadler is also criticised on different grounds:
1. Sadler failed to distinguish between fecundity and fertility. He said that the fecundity of
human beings is in the inverse ratio to the condensation of their numbers. But, in fact, no
biological reason is found to prove the idea that the density brings down ‘fertility’, and
‘fecundity’. This is because in slums the density is very high and at the same time fertility
is also high among slum dwellers.
2. Moreover, in many countries of the world where the density is high, the fertility rate is
also high. Even in India, in some states like UP and Bihar where the density is high, the
fertility is not low in comparison with the fertility of other states.
3. Another point of criticism is the paradoxical statement of Sadler that with the increase in
density, the fertility rate decreases. At the same time, he was of the view that with the
increase in density the death rate will increase and consequently, to compensate for the
loss of population the fertility rate also increases. It means that the fertility rate will not
decrease, but it will increase with the increase in density. Thus, Sadler’s statements are
self- contradictory.
4. Sadler’s view that decreases in population growth with industrialization has not been
proved true. In a country like India, industrialisation has not led to the decline in the
growth of population.
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5. Herbert Spencer’s Biological Theory:
Herbert Spencer, a famous English philosopher and sociologist, propounded the biological theory
of population in his book “The Principles of Biology”. Spencer argued that fecundity decreases as
the complexity of life increases.
According to him, changes in the growth of population occur due to natural change in the reproductive
capacity of human beings. Therefore, his theory has been known as a natural theory of population
which is similar to the theories of Sadler and Doubleday.
Spencer believed that “there exists antagonism between individuation (survival) and genesis
(reproduction)”. When any individual does work hard for his personal development at his work
place, the desire for reproduction decreases.
In other words, when more energy has been utilised for one’s self-development, the energy available
for reproduction will be less and consequently the population growth will be less. Thus, with the
development of society and for one’s success and survival (individuation), life becomes more complex
which results in reduction in the capacity of reproduction.
This is observed from the fact that fertility is more in rural individuals whose life is not complex,
whereas fertility is low in an industrial society where life is more complex, the pressure of education
is more and the brains are overtaxing.
We have four different situations which explain the relation between individuation and genesis:
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This is possible only when they restrict their families to one or two children. According to him, the
birth rate in rural areas is high while it is low in urban areas. The reasons for high birth rate in rural
areas are poverty, illiteracy, orthodoxy and lack of vigour.
The reasons for low birth rate in urban areas are people’s ambition for vertical mobility, liberal
environment, high standard of living, more income and wealth, capacity of rational thinking, high
socio-economic status of women, progressive ideals, high cost of living, the desire of middle class
to move into the upper class, etc.
As enough opportunity for social capillarity is not available in a socialist society, Dumont believes
that the socialism leads to the destruction of social capillarity.
Criticisms:
Dumont’s social capillarity theory has been criticised on the following counts:
1. Nature of Other Factors: Dumont’s view that low birth rate leads to high position in society is
not true because besides the birth rate, other factors like social, economic, political, etc. are
responsible for moving upward in the society.
2. Not a Universal Truth: It cannot be accepted as a universal truth that one cannot climb high on
the social ladder with the burden of more children on one’s back because in reality there are
many people with more children who have climbed high and there are many people having
fewer children who are living at the bottom. If we accept this view of Dumont, the childless
couples will be at the top of society. Besides, there are many people in society who have low
social status and their standard of living is also low but who have less number of children.
Therefore, the number of children or the size of family does not have direct relation to the low
or high position in the society.
3. Concept not Clear: Which type of capillarity an individual has to choose as his ideal is not clear
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in Dumont’s social capillarity concept.
4. Not Applicable to Underdeveloped Societies: Dumont’s observation that birth rate in rural
areas remains high while it is low in cities has also been criticised. It is true that compared to
rural areas, birth rate in urban areas is low, but in a country like India, when laborers migrate
from rural to urban areas, they come alone and keep their families in rural areas. This is one of
the reasons for low birth rate in urban areas. So it is not applicable to underdeveloped societies.
5. Not a Complete Theory: Dumont’s principle is not a complete population theory because social
capillarity is one of the motives that can lead to reduction in birth rate.
6. Applicable to Socialist Societies: Dumont’s assertion that socialism leads to the destruction of
social capillarity has been proved wrong. Even in a socialist country like China, people follow
the social capillarity principle. They want to move higher on the social ladder by reducing
fertility.
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Karl Marx’s Theory of Surplus Population:
Karl Marx, the famous author of Das Kapital, did not propound any specific theory of population like
Malthus did. However, he rejected the Malthusian theory as completely imaginary and false. He did
not accept Malthus’s view that population increases in geometrical progression while the means of
subsistence in arithmetical progression. Marx’s views about population growth are based on his
theory of surplus value.
According to him, the problem of population arises only in a capitalist society which fails to provide
jobs to all workers because the supply of labour is more than its demand. As a result, there is surplus
population.
But there is no surplus population in a socialist society where the means of production are in the
hands of workers. All able bodied workers are employed and there is no surplus labour. So there is
no need to check the growth of population in a socialist country.
According to Marx, capitalism is divided into two classes – the workers who sell their ‘labour-
power’, and the capitalist who own the ‘means of production’ (factories). Labour-power is like any
other commodity. The labourer sells his labour for its value and its value, like the value of any other
commodity is the amount of labour that is required to produce labour-power. In other words, the
value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence (i.e., food, clothing, housing, etc.)
necessary for the maintenance of the labourer.
This is determined by the number of hours necessary for its production. But the value of commodities
necessary for the subsistence of the labourer is never equal to the value of the produce that labourer
produces. If a labourer works for ten hours a day, but it takes him six hours’ labour to produce goods
to cover his subsistence, he will be paid wages equal to 6 hours’ labour. The difference worth 4
hours’ labour goes into the capitalist pocket in the form of profit. Marx calls this unpaid work
“surplus value”.
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According to Marx, this surplus value leadsMOto
REcapital accumulation.
THAN A CO ACHING..... The capitalist’s main aim is to
increase the surplus value in order to increase his profit. He does so by “the speeding up of labour”,
which means increasing the productivity of labour.
When the productivity of labour increases, the labourer produces the same commodity in less
hours, say 4 hours, or he produces more (two) commodities, say in 6 hours. This raises the surplus
value and hence the capitalist’s profit.
The increase in the productivity of labour requires a technological change that helps in increasing
total output and lowering the cost of production. He introduces labour-saving machines which
increase labour productivity.
This process of replacing labour by machines creates an industrial reserve army which increases as
capitalism develops. The industrial reserve army is the surplus population. The larger the industrial
reserve army, the larger the surplus population and the worse are the conditions of the employed
laborers.
This is because the capitalists can dismiss dissatisfied and troublesome workers and replace them
from the ranks of the reserve army. Capitalists are also able to cut down wages to a semi-starvation
level and raise more surplus value, while the surplus population increases.
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The Marxian theory of surplus population is explained in Fig. 1 where the labour force is taken on
the horizontal axis and the wage rate on the vertical axis. DD is the demand curve for labour and SS
is the supply curve of labour. At the wage rate OW, there is increase in the industrial reserve army or
surplus population equal to RA (=LL1). As the industrial reserve army expands, the capitalists start
adopting labour-saving machines in order to increase the surplus value and hence profits.
Consequently, the supply curve of labour SS starts sliding towards the right and becomes horizontal
at S1. The capitalists also start reducing the wage rate simultaneously to the minimum subsistence
level OM in order to have more surplus value and profits. Now at this wage rate, the horizontal
supply curve MS1 equals the demand curve for labour at the point E1. Thus at the subsistence wage
rate OM the entire working population OL1 becomes the surplus population.
Marx explains his surplus theory of population thus:
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“It is the working population which, IAS of capital also produces the
while effecting the accumulation
means whereby it is itself rendered relatively superfluous, is turned into a relatively surplus
population, and it does so to an ever increasing extent. This is a law of population peculiar to the
capitalist method.”
Criticisms:
Marx’s theory of surplus population has been criticised on the following grounds:
1. Unrealistic Theory: The Marxian theory is unrealistic because it is based on the theory of surplus
value. The concept of surplus value has not been accepted even in socialist countries as it is
unrealistic. Therefore, the very basis of his population theory does not exist.
2. Not Applicable to Socialist Countries: Marx’s contention that there is no population problem in
a socialist country has been proved wrong. China, the largest socialist country in the world, has
been faced with the problem of population growth. It had tried to control it by adopting the
“one-child” norm.
3. Technological Progress reduces Industrial Reserve Army: According to Marx, with increasing
technical progress the industrial reserve army expands which, in turn, leads to surplus
population. This is an exaggerated view because the long term effect of technical progress is to
provide more employment.
4. Not based on the Determinants: Marx does not explain the determinants of population growth
like birth rate, death rate, migration, etc.
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Thus, Marx’s explanation of population growth is not a theory in the true sense but simply a view.
Comparison between Malthusian and Marxian Theories of Population:

Similarities:
(1) Both of them have recognized the negative correlation between wages and birth and death
rates. However, this notion is more explicit in the works of Marx.
(2) Both can be recognized as economic theory of population as both have stressed a ‘relationship
between population and resources’.
(3) Both seem to have under-emphasized the role of technological development. In fact, both
seem to have failed to conceive the possibility that population can grow and living standard
can improve simultaneously over a long period of time.
Dissimilarities:
(1) Malthus tried to provide a natural law on population and demographic processes while the
theory of Marx is related with a particular socio-economic structure and would in all probabilities
not apply to other types of socio-economic structures.
(2) Ideological perspectives are antipodal in two theories. Malthusian theory is capitalist in ideology,
where he regarded self-interest among couples to be a guiding factor in marriage, family,
inheritance etc., while Marx had a communist ideology and saw the ownership of private
property as the root of all evils confronting the society.
GUIDANCE IAS
(3) Malthus theory gave the relation between wage level and population growth as a passing
reference while Marxian theory starts from this relationship.
(4) According to Malthusian theory, population problem and inequality are space dependent while
Marxian theory is based upon historical materialism and visualises these problems to be time
dependent.
(5) Malthusian theory is more deterministic while Marxian theory has more possibilistic orientation.
It is evident from the fact that according to Malthus, population processes are governed by a
natural law while Marx believes them to be the result of socio-economic set up of the society
and is inturn determined by humans. Malthus believed that the only solution to this problem
was the application of positive checks while Marx pleads for radical dismantling of capitalistic
structure to establish a communist society hence, showing belief in ability of humans.
Q1. Marx view on population is more humanistic. Comment.
14
Factors Determining the Fertility:

According to Jones, the number of births that occur in any society is determined by three factors:
the amount of sexual intercourse that occurs, the amount of intercourse that results in conception,
and the amount of conceptions that result in actual live births. There exist a number of immediate
or direct factors that determine all the three factors; Jones calls these factors as the proximate
determinants of fertility. But, there also exist a number of deep or ultimate or fundamental
determinants of fertility. According to Jones these include socioeconomic, cultural, and
environmental factors. These fundamental determinants of fertility work through the proximate
determinants to shape the fertility.
GUIDANCE IAS
Huw Jones on the determinants of fertility.
However, the proximate determinants work only if fundamental determinants create a disposition
to restrict births in the first instance. Fundamental determinants that lead to lower levels of fertility
might include the following:
1. City living – Rural populations tend to have large families as children can be a vital source
of labour in the farming activities.
2. Pensions and social security/insurance –If the State organizations take care of people’s
needs, especially when they are old, unemployed, or sick, people no longer need to have
children to support them in the time of need.
3. Compulsory schooling – Schooling reduces the economic exploitation of young children
and introduces new costs for parents (school uniforms and books etc.). Both of these
aspects induce smaller family size.
4. Education – Education opens people’s eyes to career opportunities and increases people’s
awareness of the use and benefits of contraception.
1
5. Changing status of women in society – Greater female participation in the labor market
leads to changing views on the role of women in society and diminishes the perceptions
of women as principally child-bearers.
6. Consumption – As the consumption of luxury goods becomes an increasing priority, having
fewer mouths to feed means families can dedicate more of the household budget for
servicing wants rather than needs.
7. Secularism – Some religions promote large family sizes and/or approaches to human
sexuality and that can lead to larger family sizes. Modernization often leads to secularism.
As religions ebb in their significance, secular attitudes to marriage, child bearing,
contraception, and abortion emerge. In such a scenario, people are better able to control
the size of their families.
Factors Determining Mortality:

For much of human history, average life expectancy at birth was less than 30. Highest mortality was
associated with infants. With agriculture revolution, humans were able to achieve better food
security but the mortality remained relatively high and as a result, the average life expectancy
remained low. This was primarily because the infectious diseases such as Bubonic plague could
easily be transmitted among population as contact between people increased.
However, 19th and 20th century saw improvement in housing, sanitation etc., causing mortality to
decrease and life expectancy to improve in Europe and North America. Such a change was brought
about by the new public health initiatives which were spearheaded by societies of the cities (mostly
the capitalist class) who felt that their own interests were related with the better health of lower
class population. It brought improvement in the conditions of working poor as better standard of
living along with improvement in medical technology. It also triggered the process of mortality
transition in the developed world. Now the majority of deaths were related with old age population.
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Abdel Omran’s epidemiological transition model provides aIAS
useful framework to understand such
mortality transition.
He asserts that modernization not only brings reduction in mortality levels and timing of deaths
(age of death) but also causes a shift in the causes of death from infectious and contagious diseases
to lifestyle diseases. It is clear from the fact that in mid-18th century diseases such as TB, cholera,
Diarrhoea, Pneumonia, influenza, plagues etc., were the leading causes of deaths but by late 1990’s,
only pneumonia and influenza remained in the top 10 causes of mortality, particularly in the
developed world. Here, the life style diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardio-vascular and
neurological diseases, liver and kidney related diseases etc. have replaced the infectious and
epidemic diseases as the leading causes of death. According to him, countries occupy different
stages in this epidemiological transition and progress through it at different rates. Unlike developed
world where such transition occurred over a longer period of time, in developing countries it has
been quick as they have benefitted from the transfer of public health knowledge and medical
technology from the developed world.
Thus, they have seen rapid transition in mortality than that of the developed world. This in turn
affects the demographic transition.
2
Demographic Transition Theory:
Introduction:
DDT has a possibilistic orientation as it is based upon the concept of demographic regulation. It
states that man is able to foresee a demographic catastrophe before it arrives and to take adaptive
actions long before the nature forces the same upon him.
The theory in its original form was put forward by W.H Thomson and Frank Noteiten. Although, they
originally conceived a 3 phase model, it was later modified into a 4 phase model by subsequent
writers. They based their theory on empirical data of fertility and mortality experienced in Europe,
Anglo-America and Australia.
The theory postulates a particular pattern of fertility and mortality causing a demographic change.
There are 3 processes in this transition as
 Decline in mortality comes before the decline in fertility.

 Eventually, the fertility declines to match the mortality.
 Socio-economic transformation of society occurs simultaneously with the demographic
transition.
It is important to note that at any point of time, different countries or areas of world are at different
stages of Demographic transition. This is largely due to the dual nature of humans. Biologically,
humans are same everywhere involved in the process of reproduction but culturally they differ. It is
this cultural diversity that gives rise to variability and variations in demographic rates resulting in
different countries lying in different stages of demographic transition.
Stages of D.T.T.
GUIDANCE IAS
Stage I: High Stationary Stage:

Both Birth Rate & Death Rate found to be over 35/1000.
However, the behavior of mortality is erratic due to the factors like variability in food supply and
epidemics which is, in turn, the result of infectious and parasitic diseases. Ultimately, it leads to
more or less stagnant population with very slow growth.
3
In this stage, people are primarily engaged in wasteful process of production and the society is
primarily agrarian. Other characteristics of this stage are: population density is low to moderate,
productivity is low, large size families are considered as assets, low life expectancy, primitive
agriculture, masses are illiterate and technological development is very low. It is difficult to find any
country which can be entirely associated with this stage of D.T.T in contemporary times. However,
the isolated tribal groups in various countries can be an example.
E.g. isolated tribal groups such as Jarawas & Onges in India.
Stage II: Early Expanding Stage:

It is characterized by the beginning of the transition process which starts with a decline in death
rate. In fact, death rates sharply decline and by the end of this stage, death rate reaches around 15/
1000. This change is primarily brought about by the improvement in health and sanitation which is
a function of economic and technological development. However, this change can also be brought
about by the import of medical technology, as happened in the case of developing world.
However, birth rate remains high and it is found to be over 30/1000.It is so because the decline in
fertility is slow as it a function of social development and always there is a time gap between
economic and social development. As a result, the population growth is rapid in this stage despite
the fertility begins to decline by the end of Stage II.
In the wake of high population growth, fears of population explosion are expressed and the problem
of resource mobilization becomes significant. Industrialization and urbanization become important.
Large family is no longer considered an asset. Thus, by the end of stage II, fertility also begins to
decline e.g. Least Developed Countries – (in the contemporary world) are lying in this stage: e.g.:
Many of Sub-Saharan African countries.
GUIDANCE IAS
Stage III: Late Expanding Stage:
This stage is characterized by medium fertility levels of about 20/1000. Such a decline in fertility is
caused by the social development which follows the economic development. Mortality/Death Rate
further declines to 10/1000. As a result of decreasing gap between Birth Rate & Death Rate, population
growth rate is less rapid than in the Stage II. However, by this time, many of the countries would
have acquired a large population base. Thus, huge increase in absolute numbers makes even a
modest growth rate very considerable.
Decline in Birth Rate is primarily associated with the change in economic structure which in turn
brings social development. During this period, there is high industrialization and urbanization along
with better individuation and awareness, increasing participation of women in economy,
consumption of luxury goods and weakening of the grip of religion on the society. In the contemporary
world, a few countries of 2nd world and many countries of 3rd world are in this stage.
E.g. - former Soviet Union republics (Kazakhstan etc.) India, China, Brazil. China reached Stage III by
1980s while India reached Stage III by 1990.
Stage IV: Low Stationary Stage:

Both the Birth Rate & Death Rate are low in this stage as-10/1000 and 12/1000 respectively. Thus,
natural increase in population is low, leading to either stable or slowly growing population. The
Birth Rate is low but fluctuating. Such a fluctuating nature is primarily a result of the fluctuations in
4
the economy. In fact, some countries adopt a policy of population increase leading to increase in
Birth Rate.
In this stage, the country is highly Industrialized and urbanized, technological know-how is abundant,
deliberate control on the family size is a norm, high literacy and high labor specialization etc. are the
features. In short, the country lies in the age of high mass consumption.
E.g. West European Countries, Russia, Anglo-America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore.
Critical Evaluation:
1) Cultural transferability of the theory has been questioned as it is based upon the empirical
evidence of Europe, Anglo- America etc. The socio-cultural and economic conditions of the
developing countries are different from that of the developing world. Thus, what has been
true in the case of developed world might not be a reality in the developing world.
 Several Countries like the Sub-Saharan Countries have reached the Stage II of Demographic
Transition facilitated by the imported medical technology without the necessary changes in
the socio-economic conditions.
 Loscky and Wildcose have asserted that D.T is neither predictable nor its stages are sequential
and inevitable e.g. China was able to bypass the late second stage and altogether reaching
directly stage III owing to its strict One-Child Policy.
Conclusion: Despite these shortcomings, it can be asserted that Demographic Transition Theory
provides a satisfactory framework to analyze demographic transition in different countries of the
world. In general, it is found that almost all countries pass from High Stationary to Low Stationary
stage through intermediate stages, although the nature of transition may vary depending up on the
GUIDANCE
Socio- economic structure of the country involved. IAS
Application of Demographic Transition Theory in Geographical Space:

The simplicity ingrained in the Demographic Transition Theory could not build a similar expression
in its predictability the world over. It has been found that the experiences of Demographic Transition
in the First World, Second World & Third World have been different.
1) First World Countries: They have more or less followed the same pattern of Demographic
Transition as was predicted by the theory. The transition in these countries were completed
by late 19th Century & early 20th Century, when the rest of the world was still in the first
phase of Demographic Transition. Other features of Demographic Transition like the
simultaneous socio-economic development have also been very similar to as predicted by
the theory.
2) Second World Countries: These countries have experienced a different pattern of

Demographic Transition. First of all, the transition in these countries began only in the early
decades of 20th Century when the countries like Austria & Czechoslovakia showed the first
signs of entering the transition phase. Soon it spread to other parts of Second world. However,
transition period in these countries was never that much explosive as envisaged by the
original transformation model. By 1940, most of the Second World countries had already
crossed the transition phase. Thus, the transition in their case was also a short lived one.
5
Faster fall in the fertility rates in these countries enabled such a rapid transition. Moreover,
here the Church as well as the State was in favor of population control and thus was not
antagonistic to the birth control measures. However, development of medical technology
further accelerated the fall in fertility.
3) Third World Countries: The countries in the Third World have been experiencing
Demographic Transition in a totally different and diverse manner. Relatively small sized
countries of the Third World were the first to experience the signs of explosive Second
stage for e.g. Suriname (South America) was the first country of the Third World to enter the
Second stage. Gradually, it spread to all other small countries of Latin America, Africa & Asia.
Big countries like India, China, Indonesia, Pakistan & Bangladesh entered the Second stage
only in 1950s.Generally, the mortality decline in the Third World was very fast on account of
imported medical technology.
However, simultaneous fertility transition could not occur mainly because the transition in mortality
was not accompanied by the socio-economic development. It caused the so called population
explosion in the Third World countries.
The experience of China in recent times with the One-Child Policy has given the hope that such a
faster transition could also be achieved in other developing countries with a stern political will. The
example of the Second world too demonstrates that faster decline in fertility is possible. In recent
times, fast economic growth of these countries further strengthens this idea. However, in the Islamic
world, such a fast demographic transition seems difficult to be achieved. These countries have
been able to reduce their mortality rate to significantly low levels due to the import of medical
technologies. On the other hand, the fertility rates have remained high as both the State as well the
religion is against such decline. Thus at present, very little hope is there for Islamic world and the
next few decades will be crucial in this respect.
GUIDANCE IAS
Over, Under and Optimum Population:
These concepts reflect the economic underpinnings in demographic processes. They tell the relation
between population and resources and thus convey about thebquality of life and standards of living
of a society.
These are dynamic concepts and a society can become optimum population/ under population/
overpopulation society with the change in the population resource ratio.
Over Population:
In this case, the population growth rate outpaces the rate of resource growth /development. Thus,
highest possible living standards are not achieved. It can result if the population growth rate is very
high or the technological innovation for the resource development is at a lower rate and both of the
conditions together at a time can create extreme over population.
Parameters for identification:
1) Poverty 2) Un-employment 3) Illiteracy 4) frequent famines.
Regions of Overpopulation – South Asia, East Asia [China], south-east Asia (Myanmar, Indonesia,
Thailand), Africa [Egypt & Nigeria].
6
Under Population:
There are two scenarios of under population. In the first scenario, where ‘available resources’ can
support much larger population without any reduction in the standard of life, (even if the number
of population increases, standard of living will not decline). That is the actual number of people is
low & high technology for resource development is not a problem e.g. Russia (living standard can be
increased if no. of people increase).
In the second scenario, full development of resources has not been taken place due to constraints
of population and poor technology leading to comparatively lower standard of living, despite the
scope for resource development.
It is mainly the result of poor technological development along with comparatively lower population.
E.g. – South America (Brazil, Argentina etc.), Africa. Here, similar symptoms can be visible like the
case of overpopulation such as poverty, un-employment, lower Standard of Living (e.g. majority of
famines occurred in Africa in the under populated countries like Somalia, south Sudan & Ethiopia).
Optimum Population:
Optimum population has been defined as that size of population enabling per capita output of
the maximum orders accompanied by the highest possible standards of living under a given
set of economic and technological conditions. Therefore, optimum population lies between
the two extremes, i.e., overpopulation and under-population, although the size of optimum
population is not sacrosanct.
That is the case of a balance between population and resource development with the current level
of technological development, which in turn results in high Standard of Living. E.g. Western Europe,
Anglo America, Australia, Japan. Here, High levels of technology is a common feature.
GUIDANCE IAS
Edward Augustus Ackerman (Idaho 1911-MWashington
ORE THAN A CO1973)
ACHING.....
,a noted American geographer, has
categorized the world into different Population –Resource Region as follows
ACKERMAN POPULATION RESOURCE REGION:
Criteria Popula on Resources Technology

1) Egyp an type Very high popula on Low (problema cregion) Low (problema cregion)
(overpopulated )
2) Brazilian type Low (under populated) Very high Low
3) Arc c type Low (under populated) High Low (mainly due to lack
E.g. Canada’s mining ci es of people, resources are
in arc c region. Alaska – found here).
petroleum & uranium resources.
4) American type High (su? cientop mum Very high Very high
popula on)
5) European type Higher (density)op mum Low (exhausted) Very high(compensates)
popula on,
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INDIA: Several Regions: (Criteria = per capita income)
1) Egyptian type: over populated (UP, Bihar, West Bengal).
2) Brazilian type: under population (Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh,

Telengana and north-eastern and Himalayan states.
3) Optimum populated (Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh,

Tamilnadu and Kerala).
4) Kerala – overall development is very high. However, in this classification there are intra-
regional/inter-state differences:
 In Maharashtra, outside the Konkan region, especially in Marathwada and Vidharbha region
the standard of life is low (under populated).
 In Gujarat, outside the Ahmedabad – Vadodara belt, the development is not up to the
desirable levels.
 Karnataka: Malnad region is under-populated.
These concepts are dynamic and vary in time and space. Similarly, one area can become
overpopulated/under-populated/optimum populated depending upon the changes in the economy.
GUIDANCE IAS
8
Migration:
Migration, fertility and mortality are the three fundamental elements which determine the
population growth and demographic structure of a country or a society. Migration is a permanent or
semi-permanent change of residence of an individual or group of people over a significant distance.
It can be international, intra-national, interregional, intra- urban, rural-to-urban or urban-to-rural.
On the basis of distance, it may be long or short distance. On the basis of number, it may be individual
or mass migration; and on the basis of cause, it may be politically sponsored or voluntary. On the
basis of social organisation, migration may be that of family, community, clan, or individual. On the
basis of causes, migration may be economic, social, cultural, religious or political. Migration may be
a stepwise phenomenon through many intervening phases or direct from the place of origin to the
destination.
In general, migration is an attempt to correct the population resource ratio between the regions.
Migration is an important demographic factor that affects the changing population distribution
across the world.
For example
[Source -region] total population growth = natural growth – Emigration.
[Destination-region] Total population growth = natural growth + Immigration
while
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Migration – more permanent (Intention IAS
of permanent or long-term residence in the destination),
Transhumance: seasonal movement for some specific purpose associated with the season.
Causes of Migration:
1) Push-based: The causes which are related with the source region, such as economic causes,
social factors (caste rigidity), natural hazards, and man-made reasons viz., wars etc. (Both
lower & higher classes involved in the migration.)
2) Pull-based: The causes which are related with the source region owing to the real or perceived
opportunities and in this case, mostly higher classes of migrants are involved. The
opportunities may be economic, social political etc. e.g. urban societies are comparatively
free and cosmopolitan attracting the rural population, Russia is providing incentives for
skill-based pull migration.
THEORIES OF MIGRATION:
A) Ravenstein’s theory of migration:

He formulated the law of migration in 1885 which is the first foundational theory on migration. He
gave general principles which are applicable still today:
1
1) Migration (M) and Distance (D):
M is inversely proportional to the distance. Large number of migrants move only short distances
mostly due to physical & economic factors primarily towards centers of commerce & industry.
In India – However, the primary cause is mainly social e.g. marriage of women.
2) Migration occurs in stages: stepped migration process. It happens because information

available is more for a city that is just a step above (the nearest city).
3) Streams & counter streams of migration:

A person migrating to a destination spread information about his source area in destination region.
Thus, many people start following the counter migration route.
GUIDANCE IAS
Counter migration: e.g. many people coming
MOREtoTH
India
AN A because of yoga.
COACHING.....
4) Rural-Urban differential:
Population of rural areas has more propensities to migrate as compared to urban population.
This is to improve their standard of living.
5) Preponderance of women in short-distance migration:

Reason: social institution of marriage. E.g. In India – females dominate in inter/intra district migration
while in long distance migration – male dominant (as mostly economic factors dominate).
6) Technology & Migration:
Directly related to the betterment of technology: leading to greater migration. Thus, efficient
Transportation network and ICT, greater flow of information leads to increased migration
7) Motives of migration:
According to Raven stein, economic motives have primary importance among the factors governing
the magnitude of migration. E.g. Historically, Europe to America migration has been the largest.
Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration in a nut shell:
 Most migrants move only a short distance.
2
 There is a process of absorption, whereby people immediately surrounding a rapidly growing
town move into it and the gaps they leave are filled by migrants from more distant areas,
and so on until the attractive force [pull factors] is spent.
 There is a process of dispersion, which is the inverse of absorption.
 Each migration flow produces a compensating counter-flow.
 Long-distance migrants go to one of the great centers of commerce and industry.
 Natives of towns are less migratory than those from rural areas.
 Women are more migratory than males, particularly in the case ofshort distance migration .
 Economic factors are the main cause of migration.
B) Gravity theory of W.J Rally, 1909:

He simply applied Newtonian concept of gravity to provide the magnitude of migration.
GUIDANCE IAS
Migration index = KP1 P2 / d 2 where, K – proportionality constant, P1P2 : population of source (1) &
destination (2), d- distance.
Evaluation: Treating space simply in terms of distance & fails to take into account functionality,
diffusion of information, social conditions etc. He was criticized by Harris for neglecting the role of
social considerations. According to Peterson he neglected the factor of age and sex profile of migrants.
C) Principle of Least effort: (J.K Zipf), 1940:

Mij = K Pi Pj/ d, where Mij: magnitude of migration between i and j.
Migration of people and good is based on this principle. Inter community movement is such that so
as to ‘minimise total work of the system’
3
Mij is a simple function of distance: greater distances require more efforts & the greater the distance
the lesser the magnitude of migration.
He simply treated geographical space as a simple function of distance. According to Inples, Zipf
model is just another version of gravity model and has the same limitations.
D) Model of Intervening opportunities – S.A. Stouffer, 1940:

Trying to improve upon the idea of Zipf, S.A. Stouffer put forward the Model of Intervening
opportunities. The intervening opportunities between the source and the destination change the
magnitude of migration. According to him, linear distance was less important determinant than the
nature of space. Thus, distance should be considered in socio-economic terms rather than geometric
terms.
Thus, magnitude of migration is directly proportional to the number of opportunity at destination

and inversely propotional to the number of intervening opportunities.
Y= k X*/X, where Y = Expected migrants at destination, X* = Number of opportunities @ destination,

X = Number of Intervening opportunities between the origin and the destination.
In India: Metropolisation process is because of: X is very low, X* is very high.
Evaluation: Improvement upon Zipf’s model of least effort by including the economic factors i.e.
opportunities. It is in line with Ravenstein generalist principles.
E) Model of Competing migrants – by Stouffer, 1960

Migration is not only a function ofGUIDANCE
opportunities but also aIAS
function of competing migrants from
other sources/areas. E.g. – Indians & Chinese into the US, regulated properly by granting of visas. He
has given the equation
Y  KX 0 X 1 / X b X c ,
Where, Y = no. of migrants between city 1 & 2,
X 0 = no. of out migrants from city 1,
X1 = no. of opportunities at city 2 (measured in terms of total immigrants),
X b = no. of Intervening Opportunities between city 1 & 2
X c = no. of migrants potentially competing for opportunities in city 2.
Evaluation: His model is based primarily on economic factors. This is a spatial model (neglect of
normative values) of positivism and takes into account only ‘ objective space’ by neglecting the
‘subjective space’ (behavioural & social factors).
4
F) Hagerstrand’s model – Behavioural paradigm:
Major dominance of information fields:
1) Need for migration. 2) Where to migrate.
Information fields have been accumulated over a period of time and it reflects the behaviour of
individuals.
He presented a simplified model of residential mobility. Population is distributed in discrete locations

called nodes. These nodes are connected to each other such that there is perfect mobility in terms
of population and goods. Each individual has his own personal information field surrounding him.
Migration decisions are taken in probabilistic manner using this personal information field.
Personal information field is highly variable (learning and re-learning) in space and time, despite
this variability, a mean Information field can be calculated which would be a “function of social
values of the community”. Such a mean value can be used to determine the frequency of contacts
between these nodes. Thus, he tried to overcome the weakness of gravity model.
Problems: Very complex as mean Information Field is an average of all Personal Information Fields
which is difficult to understand.
G) ES LEE model of intervening obstacles:

Migration is not just the result of opportunities (including Intervening Opportunities) and the
characteristics of source and destination but also the result of intervening obstacles as perceived by
individuals.
Types of obstacles – varies from person to person, vary with lifestyle, socio-economic and
GUIDANCE
personality characteristics. People IAS about the characteristics of a
have perceived knowledge
destination depending upon the perceived advantages with intervening obstacles in realizing those
advantages. Accordingly, people decide whether to migrate or not.
3 Types of principles:
a) Principles guiding the migration process:
i. Volume of migration within a territory decrease with increasing diversity of people, culture.
E.g. increased heterogeneity of race, ethnicity, and education etc. limit migration.
E.g. migration between Iberian Peninsula (Spanish) & South America is high. Similarly,
between Europe & North America is high due to cultural homogeneity.
ii. Volume of migration is dependent upon the diversity in economy (directly related). E.g.
Before independence, internal migration was low in India (Primarily agrarian).
iii. Volume of migration is related to the difficulty in surmounting the Intervening obstacles.
E.g. Institutional obstacles such as visa regimes.
Social obstacles such as the prevalence of joint family system.
5
Semantic barrier such as language barrier e.g. Latin America & Iberia peninsula, Cultural
obstacles such as religion (migration to Middle East from India) and Economic obstacles.
iv. Volume of migration varies with fluctuation in economy.
iv. Unless severe checks are imposed, both the total volume and the rate of migration tend to
increase with time. It can be problematic in future e.g. Metropolisation.
v. In general, migration is higher in developed economies i.e. directly related with economic
progress.
b) Principle guiding the migration streams:
Migration happens within well-defined streams along well-defined routes to certain specific
destinations. With every migration stream, a counter migration stream develops as the population
of destination becomes aware of the source region.
Push based factor- efficiency is more compelling than the pull based factor-efficiency in the
generation of migration streams.
Nature of origin and source – if nature is similar, efficiency of streams and counter-stream is low
(related to economic).
c) Views on migrants:
Migration is always selective, (not everybody can move) because of certain obstacles.
 GUIDANCE
Positive: - higher class migrants (skilled) IAS
 Negative: - lower class migrants. (Unskilled)
In the case of Pull factor based migration, there is the dominance of positive migrants – pull based
factors at destination are more important. But in the case of Push-factor based migration both the
negative migrants and the positive migrants would equally participate in the migration. If we take
all type of migrants, push factor migration dominate over the pull factor migration.
Moreover, the degree of positive selection increases with increasing difficulty in overcoming the
intervening obstacles. Intervening opportunities weed out weak and lower class migrants.
Propensity to migrate is high at certain ages. That is migration is an age specific phenomenon
(Mostly younger population). Migrants and the people at the destination would share some common
socio- cultural aspects and it largely determines the migration streams into certain destinations.
E.g. Mostly Muslims from South Asia migrate to Middle East due to the same religion of Islam.
Western (English) educated Indians into the West (US, Britain) due to English language.
6
Types:
1) Distance:
a) Short-distance/intra-district.
b) Intermediate-distance/inter district, intra –state.
c) Long distance/inter-state and international
2) Settlement type:
a) Rural-Rural.
b) Rural-urban.
c) Urban-urban.
d) Urban-rural.
3) Will of the migrant: Voluntary/Involuntary.
4) On the basis of national boundaries:
a) Domestic migration – movement within defined national boundaries.
b) International migration – When migrants cross domestic boundaries:
c) Historical streams: GUIDANCE IAS

From Europe to North America:
1) Unidirectional/stream for plantation agriculture mainly economic motive, not to settle.
2) Newer lands (Temperate coastal land).
Contrary to internal migration which merely alters the population distribution within a country,
international migration results in gain or loss in the number of residents. Further difference lies in
the fact that international migrants are generally involved in long distance migration. In the case of
international migration, the migrants move into a new set of social and cultural environment and
thus, the process of assimilation and integration can be difficult as compared to internal migration.
Reasons for such a scenario are:
1. Due to difference in economic conditions, migrants can be visualized as potential

encroachers into the economic opportunities of destination area e.g. Indians moved to
other countries in tropics during the British Rule (Indians were more advanced and could
not assimilate easily).
2. Semantic barriers –e.g. If the language of migrants is same or similar to the destination,
then the assimilation is easier. Eg: skilled migrants from India favor English speaking
destinations; similarly South Americans favor Iberian Peninsula due to the Spanish
language.
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3. Religious factors – dominant religion in destination (some religions more liberal than
other)
E.g. Protestant Christianity, Hinduism – liberal, south-west Asia – Islam, Israel – Jews.
4. Education and economic levels of migrants– more easy for the rich and highly educated
people to get- assimilated.
5. Diaspora tendencies – refers to a condition where migrants still carry the cultural
feelings and strong attachment to native countries in their minds, making the process of
migration and assimilation difficult.
International migration:
a) Pull based – (largest historical stream :from Europe à North America)
b) Push based – (Involuntary) (dominant in the phases followed by wars and natural hazards)
e.g. Jews holocaust, India & Pakistan partition (1947-48).
Historically, majority of migration has been pull based; however, there have been streams of push
based migration from time to time. In recent times – pull based migration has slowed down due to
strict international laws and visa regimes.
Major streams of International migration:

1) Largest in 17th century:
European overseas expansion, new discoveries through voyages, increased possibilities of exploiting
new world and relieving north-west Europe from acute pressure of population triggered the largest
stream of migration in the human GUIDANCE IAS
history from the Old world to the New world. Such a migration
had two different directions: MORE THAN A COACHING.....
1) To sparsely populated tropical and sub-tropical coastal lands and other easily accessible
areas mainly due to economic reasons – for production of exotic crops due to warm humid
climates: commercial production of sugarcane, tea, tobacco, spices flourished in coastland
of Americas (from Virginia to Brazil).
Such a stream of migration generated other streams as well particularly to meet the
demands of labour e.g. Initially, the cheap supply of labour was from Europe itself (Irish,
Scottish); as demand rose, slave trade from Africa became the second stream (from African
lands to coastal America). But the slavery was abolished in 19th century due to which the
densely populated countries of Asia were exploited by the British and the Dutch. Thus, a
semi-slave trade began to supply labour to the newly developed plantations in Fiji,
Mauritius, Sumatra, Caribbean, Malaysia, east Africa etc.
2) Temperate grasslands which were sparsely populated attracted European settlements.
Thus, migration occurred into temperate zones of North America and South America
(Argentina, Chile), South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. This stream constituted one
of the most important migratory movements in human history –around 20% of Europe’s
total population.
By this time, the concept of Nation states had become dominant that limited the pull
based migration to some extent. Later on major streams of international migration were
push based migrations.
8
World War-1 gave birth to forced migration. This migration led to resettlement and readjustment of
population within Europe (Eastern Europe towards Western Europe) e.g. 1 million plus Russians
were forced to leave Russia (Russian revolution). Similarly, large number of people was displaced
from Eastern Europe (e.g. Poland, Czech Republic etc.) towards Western Europe.
Next major juncture in the International migration was the period Great depression of 1930’s.The
major stream was from Europe to newly formed USA. For example, the potato crisis (famine) in
Ireland forced 1/3rd of Irish population to migrate towards Anglo America.
Jews holocaust by the Nazis created more than 1 million refugees as they left Germany to escape
Nazi persecution. During the World War-2 about 18 million people from Central & Eastern Europe
crossed international border and moved towards west Europe and Russia.
In 1947, the division of Indian subcontinent forced about 15 million people to move from one part of
subcontinent to the other. In 1948, the formation of Israel caused forced migration of about 1.5
million Palestinian refugees to other Arab countries. The Gulf War of 1990s also caused large migration
within the Middle East. Recently, the Gulf Spring along with the Syrian Crisis triggered large migration
towards the West.
Recent International Migration Streams:
1. Nature of international migration has undergone a change. In general, the pull- based/
voluntary migration has been declined primarily due to strict laws and visa regimes. Also
there is a clear North-South divide in migration. The North (i.e. developed world) acts as
major destination while the South (developing world) constitutes largely the source
regions.
2. However even in the present scenario, the push-based migration streams (involuntary)
following wars, political instability and hazards etc. have caused large scale displacement
of people as compared to the earlier streams.
3.
GUIDANCE IAS
Although small in number the contemporary migration is of great importance for certain
countries, particularly those countries which lie in 5th stage of demographic transition as
it is the chief source of demographic change within these countries. A distinction can be
made here:
a) Those that have legal sanction of receiving country.
b) Those whose status is considered illegal by receiving country.
c) Those who have been admitted as refuges.
A) Legal migrants:
Two Categories:
1) Potential citizens in the future by conferring the citizenship: A common type of migrants
within the developed world. E.g. Western Europe & North America, Europe & Australia
(till 1990’s Australia followed a Selective “the White migration policy”.). Similarly, people
moving from mainland China to Hong Kong, Eastern Europe to west Europe (after the
disintegration of USSR).
2) Migrants as residents for certain period: Those migrants that stay abroad for a restricted
time period as determined by the availability of employment, the fulfillment of business
purpose etc.
The South-South Migration is largely of this kind.
9
E.g. India, China, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, some African countries (Nigeria, South Africa) to
the Developed World as well the South and SE Asia to the Gulf. The south-west Asia (the Gulf) is
another important destination region (Soudi Arabia > UAE > Kuwait) (partly because of oil boom and
partly because of strict measure (Intervening Obstacles) adopted by other destination countries of
the world). Here composition of immigrants is mainly semi-skilled to unskilled laborers. Since 2000,
there has been a change and skilled migrants are also moving to the Gulf and the share of neighboring
countries migrants moving to south-west Asia has declined and that of India, Pakistan, and Philippines
has increased.
Southern Africa (South Africa, Zimbabwe) is other important destination region. However, such a
migration has largely been for limited period following the employment opportunities available in
the mining sector. This trend has declined since 1990’s due to institutionalization and political factors
operating in the region.
I) Illegal migration: illegal immigration refers to the migration of people into a country in
ways that violate the immigration laws of that country, or continuing the stay in a country
by the people who no longer have the legal right to remain. In many regions, migration of
labour has not been institutionalised yet the migration continues in the form of illegal
migration.
E.g. Destination region: America (US, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, And Venezuela) from the Source
regions: Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Mexico and other Central American nations.
In the Middle East, the destination countries are Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE, Egypt and Turkey
South-East Asia = Destination: (Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines). East-Asia = North Korea
to South Korea, Mainland China to Hong Kong.
South-Asia = destination (India, Pakistan) from Source (Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar,
Sri- Lanka).
GUIDANCE IAS
Africa = destination (Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mali,MO
Chad, Sudan,
RE THAN Somalia,
A COACHING..... and South Africa also) by Source:
(sub-Saharan Africa, Katanga plateau).
Between Africa & Europe (from Morocco, Algeria towards southern Europe-France, Dutch,
Yugoslavian region, Italy).
II) Refugees: Refugees are those involuntary or forced international migrants created by
man-made or natural disasters like the political instability, wars, natural calamities, famines
etc. A refugee is a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape
war, persecution, or natural disaster. In this case, the destination countries are bound by
International laws to receive them – the Asylum laws.
4) Internally Displaced persons: People who are in the same situation as that of refugees but
unable to cross the national borders and thus they are living in a relatively worse conditions than
that of the refugees.
 1951 UN convention related to the status of refugees and1967 protocol related to the status
of refugees, define refugees as persons outside their country unable to return owing to fear
of persecution for reason of race, nationality, members of a social group ,political opinion
etc.
About 61 countries are source regions of refugees. More than 10 million people have been displaced
in the past decade. This includes refugees as well as Internally Displaced persons.
 Source: Troubled regions – about 1 million people were converted to refugees following
10
the American invasion of Afghanistan and they moved to Pakistan, south-west Asia.
1st gulf war: from Iraq to Iran and Saudi Arabia, Turkey,
Syrian conflict (to Turkey, Iran, Iraq & Saudi Arabia, Lebanon) + Europe (Germany, Britain, Spain).
 Africa – these areas are source regions:
Oil belt  Libya, Egypt, Algeria to southern Europe.
South Sudan  to Ethiopia.
Somalia  to Ethiopia.
Sub-Saharan: (persecution by Boko Haram) to Nigeria.
Guinea coast  (Liberia, Sierra Leone – discovery of minerals led to tribal wars) to Ghana &
Nigeria.
Central Africa  (D.R. Congo) – tribes from Katanga plateau towards South Africa and
Zimbabwe.
Unlike voluntary migration, involuntary migration is non-selective as the whole communities are
affected. According to UNHRC data – 51% of global refugees are children, women and girls represent
50% of entire refugee population. This creates several types of risks such as discrimination against
girls, sexual and gender violence against them. Unaccompanied women and girls – particularly
pregnant women as well as the older and the disabled may suffer the most. World over about 60
million people are in need of assistance due to forced displacement (refugees + Internally Displaced
persons).
GUIDANCE IAS
International migration from India:
Historically, it has been low in India. In ancient and medieval times, India was an important
destination for migrants (e.g. from Mongolia, China, Central Asia etc.).
During the same time, the out stream from India was towards South-East Asia such as to Myanmar,
Thailand (mostly of Brahmin traders) ,later to Sri-Lanka of Tamils.
Modern times: increased during the British period.
E.g. .Indians were taken into plantation fields of Caribbean, Fiji, Mauritius, Indonesia, Sri-Lanka etc.
as indentured labourers (semi-slave status) by the British.
Post-independence: international migration has slowed down but continued, especially to certain
destinations as;
1) Due to the efforts of national and planned development, skilled and highly skilled human
resources were produced. But they could not find the expected employment opportunities
within India; this led to out flux of these skilled people to developed countries such as the
USA and Britain in 1960’& 70’s.
2) Several migrants having entrepreneurial spirit migrated into different regions like North
America, UK, and Africa. Most of them were middle aged and married. Once they
established themselves in the destination countries, their families accompanied them.
11
3) since 1990’s, due to LPG policies – trend of migration has been changed and many new
destinations have been emerged:
 US, UK still remain as the most preferred for skilled migrants.
 France, Germany, Japan (2015: 7 lakhs migrated), Australia (after it diluted its racial policy of
migration).
 Into developing world – e.g. South-west Asia (UAE,OMAN,SAUDI ARABIA,QATAR, Bahrain,

Kuwait).
In the case of south-west Asia, majority of migrants were unskilled to semi-skilled in 1960’s &
1970’s. Since 1990’s, the proportion of skilled migrants has also been increased.
 India to South Africa (now less significance).
 India to China (Indians are English speakers) & South Korea.
4) Since 1990’s, there has been change in the age structure and the profile of the migrants –
now majority of them are highly skilled and of younger age group e.g. Engineer, Doctor,
Nurses.
Internal Migration of India:

Historically internal migration in India was low due to:
1. Low economic development and self-sufficient nature of Indian village economy: (Lee’s
migration principle) with little diversification of economy on the national level.
2. GUIDANCE
Diversity is high: High Cultural IAS
and Regional Diversity along with the prevalence of Caste,
Joint family, diversity of language, traditional values, lack of education, semi feudal land
relations etc. all acting as intervening obstacles.
3. India as a unified nation is a recent phenomenon: In the past, India was fragmented into
several princely states, kingdoms etc. restricting the mobility of people – Political barriers
= intervening obstacles.
Post-Independence period, internal migration in India has accelerated awing to:
i) Rapid diversification and transformation of economy, improvement in educational

standards, Technological development, particularly the transport and communication
technologies along with structural changes in the economy.
2001 Census:
 Migration of about 309 mn people with respect to place of last residence between 1991-
2001. Out of this, 85% were intra-state migrants, 13% inter-state migrants.
 In general there was increase in migration by almost 150% compared to previous decade:
primarily result of New Economy policy & consequent economic Growth.
 Intra-district = dominant (Primary cause is social reasons related to marriage etc.,).Woman

were maximum (of young age).
 Inter-district = Economic objectives (dominated by males), Rural-urban migration: towards

larger cities.
12
 Inter-state migration – long distance migration, Economic purpose, Males dominated. Here
categorization can be seen as:
Some out-migrating (Bihar, U.P., M.P., Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Orissa, Rajasthan) while
some in-migration (Maharashtra., Gujarat, Karnataka, A.P., T.N., Punjab): These states had net increase
in immigration.
In 2011 Census:
1) Positive net out-migration rate has dropped compared to 2001for high income states e.g.
Maharastra, Haryana, Punjab, and Gujarat.
2) Some middle income states – T.N. & Karnataka have recorded highest net gain of
immigration. Similarly, another such set of middle income states viz., West Bengal &
Himachal Pradesh have recorded slower growth rate of immigration with respect to 2001
census.
1) Low Income states – general reduction in rates of out-migration. E.g. Birth rate (due to
faster economic growth). Same in case of Uttar Pradesh & Orissa. Maximum improvement
in Madhya Pradesh & Jammu & Kashmir (showed net migration in negative in 2001 but
positive in 2011 i.e. there was more immigration than outmigration.
Reason of Internal Migration in India:
Reasons Total Share (%) Males’%

Females%
1) Work & employment 14.7% 37.6% 3.2%
2) Marriage 43.8% 2.1% 6.5%
3) Moved with household 21%

GUIDANCE
25%
IAS 18.9%
4) Education 3% 6.2% 1.3%
5) Business 1.2% 2.9% 0.3%
6) Moved after birth 6.7% 10.4% 4.8%
7) Others 9.7% 15.7% 6.7%
Migration and settlement types:
a) Rural – Urban - 21mn.
b) Rural – Rural - 53mn.
c) Urban – Urban - 14mn.
d) Urban – Rural - 6mn.
1) Rural – Rural migration: The most important internal migration in which the most dominant
component is Intra – district migration dominated by women (marriage being the primary
reason), migration of agricultural laborers to newly claimed agricultural areas, workers
moving out of agriculture during off-seasons and employment in irrigation, roads, dams,
building construction projects etc. are the major components . Generally, such migration
13
originates from over – crowded areas of low productivity destined towards sparsely
populated areas where developmental activities are being taken up.
Origin states: UP, Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Telengana, Madhya Pradesh,
Orissa.
Destination states – Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh,Gujarat & Maharashtra.
b) Rural-Urban migration: Majority: intra-district (female migrants: owing to marriage

displacement), followed by inter-district (mostly male migration) and inter-state migration
(mostly of males).
State level – share of net Rural-Urban migration in urban growth (urbanization) was higher in some
smaller states & UTs e.g. Goa, Delhi, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Chandigarh. Here, urban growth was
mainly from migration.
Major states – Gujarat (36% urban growth was contributed by R-U Migration followed by Maharashtra>
Haryana> Punjab).
In rest of the country, the North & North-Eastern states – (contribution of R-U migration to
urbanization was below the national average).
Although in terms of percentage, Contribution R – U migration to urbanization of India was less than
the natural growth in 2001 but in absolute numbers it was very high which is bound to present
complexities for future.
c) Urban – Urban migration: dominated by male migrants of almost all age- groups. This type is
primarily pull- based. Major cause: employment and is medium to long distance migration.
Changes in Urban – Urban migration: increasing share of females (Marriage and moving with
household) but the share GUIDANCE
of migration caused by IAS
education and employment has been
increasing for women. It constitutes a lot to Metropolisation
MORE THAN A COACHING..... in India.
d) Urban –Rural migration: Migration of this kind is the least (5%), mostly of short-distance,
women dominant on account of matrimonial alliances. In the case long distance, men
dominate particularly by the retired personnel. In recent times, the sub-urbanization is
seen .That is people move out of large urban centers to its surrounding suburbs.
Seasonal and Temporary migrations:

1) Largest chunk is rural-rural migration (workers move from one area to other with the
objective of getting employment in construction works, agricultural fields, brick kilns,
stone quarrying, fishing etc.,)
2) Second important is Rural – Urban migration – because of wage employment
3) Third important is Urban – Rural migration – result of laborers moving back to native
villages during the harvesting period. It is primarily employment oriented migration (male
dominant)
14
Population Growth and Distribution
Population growth:
World:
For much of human history, world population was small and population growth was slow. On account
of better food security which is made possible by the shift from the hunter-gatherer society to an
agricultural based economy, the population began to grow. It was still a little more than 200 million
around 1st A.D. During this period, the high birth rates were offset by high death rates caused by the
epidemics, famines, wars, etc. It is estimated that the bubonic plague reduced the population of
China and Europe by nearly half in the 14th century. Thus, even by the 16th century, the world
population was estimated to be only 500 million.
GUIDANCE IAS
1
GUIDANCE IAS
2
From the 16th century onwards, rapid advancements in technology had been seen along with the
age of exploration, inventions, and discoveries. As a result, by mid-17th century, the world population
started to grow rapidly with increase in life expectancy and it reached 1 billion by 1800.
The 19th century brought a surge in population growth, particularly in Europe as it reached the 2nd
stage of Demographic transition. This coincided with the Industrial revolution enabled the doubling
of the population of Europe between 1800-1900. As a result of this rapid increase in the population,
the streams of out migration from Europe began to be larger in numbers. (12 times increase in North
America’s population in the same period). During this period, majority of the world i.e. developing
world- growth was slow as they were in the 1st stage of demographic Transition. The world population
reached approximately 1.7 billion by 1900 & 2 billion by about 1930. By mid-20th century,
unprecedented growth in world population was seen due to increase in developmental activities &
improvement in health and technology in the developing world. Thus by 1960’s, the world population
reached 3 billion and 4 billion by 1974. The 5th billion was reached just 12 years later & by 2009, total
population reached 6.8 billion and crossed 7 billion in 2012.
Future projections:
The United Nations Population Division (UNDP) provides authoritative population projections to
the year 2050, and more speculative forecasts to the year 2100, and even 2300. Because population
projections are especially sensitive to the changes in fertility levels, the UNDP paints a variety of
scenarios depending upon different fertility forecasts:
 a “constant variant” scenario, assuming the fertility levels continue in the future much as
they are today;
 a “medium variant” estimate, where TFRs behave as expected;
 “High variant” and “low variant” projections, based upon the assumption that all countries
GUIDANCE
exhibit TFRs of 0.5 of a child IAS
above or 0.5 of a child below the medium variant.
According to the United Nations’ WorldMPopulation
ORE THAN A COACHING..... 2012 Revision (United Nations
Prospects:
Population Division, 2013), world population will continue to grow during the remainder of this
century, although the pace of growth may decline after 2050. If birth rates were to remain as they
were in the period 2005–2010, remarkably, world population could rise to over 28 billion by 2100.
The medium variant projection predicts a growth in world population from 7.2 billion today to 9.6
billion in 2050 and to 10.9 billion by 2100. The high variant scenario predicts a population of 16.6
billion in 2100 whilst the low variant estimate points to a slight contraction in world population to
6.8 billion by 2100.
Of course, population growth in the twenty-first century will occur more rapidly in some regions
and not at all in others. As a consequence, a significant regional redistribution in population is
likely. According to the United Nations, the following developments are likely to occur:
 Asia – Asia in 2100 will remain the most populated continent, but its population will peak
around 2055 (at circa 5.2 billion) and gradually decline toward the end of the century to 4.7
billion by 2100. By 2100, India, with a population of 1.55 billion, will be the most populated
country in the world.
 Africa – Perhaps the most significant demographic event of this century will be Africa’s
sustained population expansion, from 1.1 billion today to 4.2 billion by the end of the
century. By 2100, Nigeria (at 913 million) will displace the United States to become the
third- highest populated country in the world.
3
 Europe – The population of Europe will peak around 2020 at 743 million and thereafter
decline to 639 million by 2100. By 2100, the Russian Federation (at 101 million) will house
Europe’s largest population.
 Latin America and the Caribbean – The population of Latin America and the Caribbean is
projected to reach a maximum of around 2065 at 791 million, and it will decline to 736
million by 2100. By 2100, Brazil (at 195 million) and Mexico (at 140 million) will be the
highest populated countries in the continent.
 North America – The population of North America will rise from 355 million in 2013 to 446
million by 2050 and finally to 527 million in 2100. By 2100, the United States will be the
fourth-highest populated country in the world with a population of 462 million.
 Oceania – The population of Oceania will rise marginally from 38 million in 2013 to 56
million by 2050 and 70 million by 2100. But Oceania will remain the least populated of all
continents, with only 0.6% of the world’s population.
India population growth:

The current population of India contributes to 17% of the global population. Population in India is
unevenly distributed across 3.28 million square kilometres of our geographical area. According to
the 2001 Census, Uttar Pradesh is the highest populated state in India with a total number of 166
million people. While on the other hand, states like Sikkim and the UT Lakshadweep have the
lowest population of 0.5 million in Sikkim and only 60000 people in the Lakshadweep. Furthermore,
about half of the country’s population is concentrated around five major states- Maharashtra, Uttar
Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. Though Rajasthan is the largest state in size, its
population constitutes only 5.5% of the total population of India. Different phases in India’s
population growth since the beginning of 20th century
1. Stagnant population (1901GUIDANCE IAS(5%), 1st stage of Demographic

– 1921): very slow growth
MORE THAN A COACH ING.....
Transition, both the birth and the death rates were high & food availability was low,
natural hazards, epidemics & famines etc. were sporadic phenomena.1921 census –
a watershed year (as population growth rate was negative). Thus, it is also known
as demographic divide. Net loss of population in northern zone along with Eastern
zone. But west-Bengal & North-East
India registered a net increase in population due to immigration. Impact of
negative growth was not felt in southern zone. Kerala experienced high growth
rate of 22% in this period.
2. Period of steady growth (1921-1951): Population increased from 250 million to 361 million.
There was an increase of about 47%. Reasons: Due to nationalistic pressure, British
government had to take up developmental activities e.g. improvement in health. As a
result, sharp fall in death rates. Thus, 2nd stage of DT began.
3. Period of High growth (1951-1981): some signs of decline in birth rate (36) & death rate
(12). With the independence & beginning of planned development, there was a very
sharp decline in death rates. Since the birth rate is more dependent on social development
which causes only after a gap, there was a limited decline in birth rate to 36. Such a
difference between the death rate & birth rate led to the period of population explosion
in India for 3 decades. Total population increased from 361 million (1957) to 683 million (in
1981). It is an example of the fertility led growth. [Highest growth = north zone; Lowest =
south zone]
4
1981-2011: Period of high growth rate with definite signs of slow down. Birth rate continued to
decline. The population policy of India appears to have started bearing fruits. During this period,
there was the closing of gap between death rate & birth rate. Birth rate showed faster decline than
the death rate. This allowed population to grow with slower rate but with high increase in absolute
numbers. After 1981, the annual growth rate decline to 2.38% between 1981-91. Earlier 1971-1981 =
2.46%, 1961-71 = 2.48%. Between 1991-2001 = 2.15% & 2001-11 = 1.76%. Such a decline reveals that
India entered 3rd stage of demographic Transition in this period (1981-2011). This is further testified
by the results of 2011census as it was for the first time after 1921 that the absolute addition in
population has been lower than the previous census. Total no. of people added: 2001-11 = 181
million, while 1991-2001 = 182 million.
GUIDANCE IAS
5
Population growth as per 2011 census:
2011 census is an important demographic divide as India added 181 million people during 2001-11.
Although the population growth rate has been consistently declining after 1971 census, absolute
addition in each decade since 1971 census was always higher than the previous decade. This trend
has been changed now. It is facilitated by the decline in the population growth rate of most backward
states (i.e., EAG states) e.g. UP, Bihar etc.
Inter-state analysis:
I) High category: Decadal Population Growth rate > national average ( 17.64% as 2011 census is
the national average):
a) UTs: Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu, Pondicherry, NCT.
b) Small North-eastern & hilly states: Meghalaya (27.8%), Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram,
Manipur (18.6%), Jammu & Kashmir due to developmental activities & illegal migration.
c) Large states: All EAG states except Orissa.
d) Developed states: Gujarat and Haryana due to Immigration
For several decades, the EAG states of India have grown at consistent & faster rates due to high
fertility rates, increasing population by a fourth every 10 years. This trend seems to have changed in
2011 census with an overall decline in fertility in all of them. It had a positive impact on the national
average of India as these states have large population base and they still lie in the later 2nd stage of
Demographic transition.
II) Medium category: 10 <decadal growth> national averages:

States & UTs: - 17.1% in Chandigarh to 11.1% in Andhra Pradesh. Others are Assam, Maharashtra,
Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Orissa, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh & Sikkim. In this category,
except in the case of Tamil Nadu, the decadal population growth rate has declined compared to
previous census, (in Tamil Nadu GUIDANCE IAS Immigration is an important
increased due to immigration).
component in Maharashtra, west Bengal, and Punjab & Tamil Nadu. In rest of the states, decadal
population growth rate was the result of relatively higher birth rate & lower death rate caused by
the gap in socio- economic development. This category has entered the 3rd stage DT.
III) Low Category –population growth rate <10%:

Goa, Andaman& Nicobar, Lakshadweep, Kerala & Nagaland, except Kerala, all others are new entrants.
Kerala has for past 2 decades shown a growth rate that is very much similar to the rate of the
developed world and seems to have reached the 4th stage of Demographic Transition.
Case study:
Nagaland: - decadal population growth rate has dropped from 64.5% in 2001 to -0.47% in 2011. This
may be the result of outmigration. It is important to understand the processes which have triggered
these changes as these signs are also visible in the case of Andaman & Nicobar and Lakshadweep
although with lesser intensity.
Thus in India, we cannot have a uniform demographic transition but several transitions can be seen
at work. As a result, India can’t afford to have a single centralised population policy and thus each of
the states needs to have their own population policy if the population stabilisation goal is to be
achieved on time.
6
POPULATION DISTRIBUTION:
World:
A. Factors affecting population distribution:
1) Natural factors:
(i) Topography – Hilly areas, mountain regions: sparsely populated.
(ii) Climate – extremes: sparsely populated e.g. Deserts, glaciated regions, and tropical humid
region.
(iii) Accessibility – e.g. evergreen forest less accessible, while coastal area has>50% of the
world population.
(iv) Hazards & disease prone ness – e.g. Mosquito Coast of Central America (Gulf of Mexico) is
sparsely populated.
2) Man-made:
1) Historical factors – e.g. river valleys became the nucleus of population growth (e.g. Canada
– St. Lawrence water bay, Tigris & Euphrates Rivers, and River Indus).
(I) Economic factors – Industrialisation process à growth of urban centers.
(ii) Political factors – Boundaries & strict migration policies.
A. Primary population zone:

1) East Asian region – mainland china, Korea, Japan etc.
2) South Asia – India, Bangladesh, Pakistan etc.
3) Western Europe – the Industrial Revolution.
4) GUIDANCE
Atlantic coast of North America IAS
and Atlantic sea board, great lake region: Very high
industrialisation & urbanisation are the prime reasons.
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B. Secondary population concentration-zones:
1) North America – Pacific coast (California).
2) Central America – central Mexico (Mexico City).
3) South America – south-eastern Brazil (Rio-Grande Rivers) + Uruguay, north-eastern
Argentina (steppes region) and central Chile (Mediterranean-climate).
4) Africa – Valley of Nile, Guinea coast (Nigeria), plateau region of South Africa.
5) Asia – Middle East –the Fertile Crescent (Rivers Tigris & Euphrates), South-east Asia –
Indonesian islands (e.g. java, etc.)
6) Europe – the Steppes between (black sea & Caspian Sea).
C. Sparsely populated areas:
1) Polar sub-polar belt.
2) Interior of temperate zones.
3) Mountainous and desert areas etc.
Future population distribution: not expected to show much change. There will not be much change
in the near future (deterministic) as environmental controls would not allow dense population
settlements in the sparsely populated regions. Thus, unless there is very drastic improvement in
technology, population density is not going to show much change.
Population distribution – India:

Indian population is next only to China; India is the second largest populous country in the world.
On a geographical area of 2.45 per cent of the world total area, the country accounts for a little less
than 17 per cent of its population.
India’s population stood at 1028.61GUIDANCE

million according to theIAS
final figures of 2001 census.
With a density of 324 persons per square km as compared to the world average of only 47 persons,
India indeed is one of the most thickly populated countries of the world.
India is a vast country with a great amount of diversity from one region to another in terms of its
geography, history and the resultant social, cultural and economic attributes. This diversity is also
manifested in the patterns of population distribution in the country. One of the unique features of
India’s population is its uneven spatial distribution.
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The density of population:
2011: 382 persons/square kilometers increased from 2001: 325 person square meter km: Very high,
total 2.4% of world surface area supporting 17.5% of the world population. (USA – 7.2% of world’s
land area supporting 4.5% of world population.)
Patterns of density:
1) Temporal pattern: increasing consistently (exception 1921 census).

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It was 77 in 1901, 1921 seen – 1.2% changes
MORE (decrease) inINdensity
THAN A COACH G..... & afterwards, it is increasing
consistently.
1951 = 117 (from here phenomenal increase in population density was seen): Planning era, Green
revolution: food security, decrease in mortality rate etc. are the reasons for such increase. E.g. In the
1951 census, population increase was 13.7% but in the 1961 census, it went up to-21.4%.
This increase has continued despite a declining trend in population growth rate. This is due to the
high population base of India translates into large additions in absolute numbers. For the first time
since 1921, the growth rate in density in the census 2011 was lesser than that of previous census.
Between 2001 & 2011, percentage increase in the density was 17.5% which was lesser than the
increase in the previous decade of 1991-2001.i.e. 21.7%.
Spatial pattern of Density:
i) Areas of extremely low density < 100 person per square km: Arunachal Pradesh (17), Mizoram,
Andaman & Nicobar & Sikkim (86).
Reasons: Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram & Sikkim: lower density is because of natural factors
(poor accessibility and harsh climate and topography), While Andaman & Nicobar: topography,
tropical hot & humid climate: disease prone, forested, and tribally inhabited, deterministic
factors: lack of economic development.
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ii) Areas of low density (101 – 205 person square km): Nagaland, Manipur, Himachal Pradesh,
Jammu & Kashmir, Meghalaya, Uttarakhand: hilly mountainous states. Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan
& Madhya Pradesh. Chhattisgarh & Madhya Pradesh: difficult terrain (plateau) tribal, forested
hot & humid, Rajasthan – arid, semi-arid conditions. As a result, Economic development is
slow.
Jammu & Kashmir – density varies within the state e.g. Low in Ladakh, high in Kashmir valley.
iii) Areas of moderate density (251-500 persons per square km): Orissa, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh,
(including Telengana), Karnataka, Tripura, Maharashtra, Goa, Assam and Jharkhand (majority of
the Deccan plateau).
Reasons: Rugged topography, agriculture is more developed & there is industrial development
in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka & Goa. Terrain = enough plain land = intensive
subsistence rice farming but is relatively inaccessible.
In Assam: Brahmaputra plains (plantation agriculture), here immigration is also a reason. Assam
is a very hazard-prone region.
iv) Areas of High Density (501-1000 persons per square km): U.T.’s (Dadra and Nagara haveli), Indo-
gangetic plains: Punjab, Haryana, U.P., T.N. and Kerala. Reasons: Flatlands, good agriculture
development. Historically also these were the first to settle. Tamil Nadu: Economic
development (agriculture and Industry).Punjab and Haryana: Steppe type of biome, human
development also taken place (Medium Category).
Kerala: flat land, coastal plain etc.
V) Very high density (> 1000 persons per square km.): Bihar = 1102, west Bengal = 1029, Rest U.T.s.:
Lakshadweep, Daman & Diu, North Delhi (11297) & Chandigarh.
Reasons: flatlands, very fertile, at least 3 growing period thus can afford very high population
density. West Bengal = industrial cluster (around R. Hooghly).
FERTILITY AND ITS MEASURES:

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As has been pointed out earlier fertility, mortality and migration constitute the three basic
components of population growth. In order to calculate the magnitude of population change in any
area, it is essential to measure fertility, mortality and migration precisely. Fertility, which refers to
the occurrence of birth, however, needs to be differentiated from fecundity, which refers to the
reproductive capacity of a woman during her entire reproductive period. It is not very easy to
measure ‘fecundity’ but the measurement of fertility does not pose many problems. Various
measures of fertility have been coined. They include: crude birth rate, general fertility rate, child
woman ratio, fertility ratio, age specific birth rate, standardized birth rate, total fertility rate,
reproduction/replacement rate etc.
Need of studying Fertility in Demography:
Fertility concerns the addition of new members to a population by birth; that is, the actual
performance of a population in bearing children. It is one of the components of population change.
Births and deaths are technically referred to as fertility and mortality in demography. It differs from
fecundity, which refers to the physiological capability of women to reproduce. Fertility is directly
determined by a number of factors that in turn, are affected by a great many social, cultural, economic,
health and other environmental factors.
Populations which do not take up explicit measures to limit the number of births are said to
experience NATURAL FERTILITY. In such populations, fertility is considered to be an essentially
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biological phenomenon and its level varies mainly due to social customs such as varying age at
marriages and differencing breastfeeding and weaning practices and not due to any contraceptive
measures adopted for spacing of children.
Some women are, for various reasons, unable to bear any children. Such women are said to be
STERILE or infertile. Sterility is of two types; one is PRIMARY STERILITY and other is SECONDARY.
STERILITY. Primary sterility refers to women who have not produced any live births at all. Secondary
sterility refers to the women who have become sterile after the birth of one or more children.
‘Even though childbearing is basically a biological phenomenon, it is generally argued that variations
in the level of fertility are not primarily due to the differences in physiological capacity but more
often produced by responses of individuals and couples to the social systems in which they live.
Biological and behavioural factors which directly influence fertility and through which social,
economic and other factors come to influence childbearing are called PROXIMATE DETERMINANTS
of fertility. Scholars have all along differed and still differ on the importance of different factors that
contribute to a given level of fertility in a population and of the contributions of family planning
programs towards reduction of fertility levels in a population. No single theoretical model has yet
been developed which captures all aspects of fertility behaviour. Empirical work conducted in
developing countries has suggested that the key variables that contribute to variations in fertility
behaviour at the aggregate or individual level are: education and labour force participation of
women, marital patterns (age at marriage), the duration of breast feeding, child mortality levels
and contraceptive use. The transition in the fertility patterns of countries from high to low levels of
fertility has accompanied their levels of industrialisation and development. Fertility is considered
to be closely linked with socio-economic development and process of industrialisation. In their
theories of fertility, since the early 1950s, economists, utilising various concepts of economics,
viewed fertility performance simply as ‘economic behaviour’, a rational ‘economic response’ and
the sociological significance of reproduction was not included in the economic analysis of fertility.
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‘There is always a big difference between M the
OREactual
THAN Afertility
COACHIN and
G.....the maximum number of children
that is physiologically possible for a woman to bear. Theoretically, if a woman gave birth to one child
every 10 months over a period of 31 years (14 to 45), she could produce 37 children during the
physiologically limited childbearing period. Even, if she gave birth to a child every 15 months
throughout her reproductive period, she would produce a total of 25 children. Of course, no
population reaches that maximum and there is great variation in fertility across regions.
FERTILITY RATE
This entry focuses on the number of births per woman in a population. The most commonly used
metric is the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) – or often simply ‘fertility rate’ – which measures the average
number of children per woman.
The global average fertility rate is just below 2.5 children per woman today. Over the last 50 years
the global fertility rate has halved. And over the course of the modernization of societies the
number of children per woman decreases very substantially. In the pre-modern era fertility rates of
4.5 to 7 children per woman were common. At that time the very high mortality at a young
age kept population growth low.
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THE GLOBAL DECLINE OF THE FERTILITY RATE SINCE 1950
The number of children per woman was very high in the past and up to the second half of the 20th
century. Globally, up to 1965 the average woman had more than 5 children. As the first visualization
below shows this changed over the last 50 years. Over the last 50 years the global fertility rate has
halved and globally the average woman has fewer than 2.5 children today.
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MORE TH
Total Fertility AN Aas
Rate COof
ACHING.....
2013
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THE DETERMINANTS OF TFR:
Welsh population geographer Huw Jones offers a useful framework to understand about the factors
that determine the levels of fertility in any country or soiety. According to Jones, the number of
births that occur in any country is a reflection of three factors: the amount of sexual intercourse that
occurs, the amount of intercourse that results in conception, and the amount of conceptions that
result in actual live births. There exist a number of immediate or direct factors that determine all
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three; Jones calls these the proximate determinants of fertility. But there also exist a number of
deep or ultimate or fundamental determinants of fertility; for Jones these include socioeconomic,
cultural, and environmental factors. These fundamental determinants of fertility work through the
proximate determinants to shape fertility.
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Huw Jones on the determinants of fertility:
As per many other scholars, the basic determinants of fertility include fecundity, age at marriage,
duration of marriage, marriage systems, sexual habits, etc. Besides these, there is a long list of the
other factors, which make their own contribution in influencing the fertility patterns of a population.
For our convenience, we may classify these factors into four broad categories of biological,
demographic, socio-cultural and economic factors.
 Biologically, race, fecundity and physical and mental health have been considered as
important, determinants of fertility.
 The list, of demographic factors would include the factors like age composition, sex
composition, degree of urbanization, duration of marriage, and working/non-working
status of females.
 The socio-cultural determinants of fertility would cover such factors as religious
background, education level, age of marriage, traditions and customs relating to martial
and sexual life, primacy of individuals, attitude of people towards family restrictions,
desire for having a son and public policies.
 Among the economic factors, the most prominent is, of course, the level of income. Closely
related with this is the standard of living and resultant diet.
It may be pointed out that it is not an exhaustive list of factors determining fertility. In fact, the
human fertility is controlled by a large number of personal psychological factors working in specific
situations and, therefore, it may not be possible to prepare an exhaustive inventory of all these
factors.
1. Women’s Education
 The choice for having a childGUIDANCE IAS
is a question of opportunity costs and education changes them
 MORE THAN A COACHING.....
Additional positive feedbacks of education.
1. Positive feedback via the health of children.
2. Positive feedback via contraceptives.
3. Positive feedback via lower fertility.
4. Better education makes it possible for social norms to change.
2. Women’s Labour Force Participation: Conclusion women’s empowerment.
3. Increasing wellbeing and status of children etc.
factors, which make their own contribution in influencing the fertility patterns of a population. For
our convenience, we may classify these factors into four broad categories of biological, demographic,
socio-cultural and economic factors.
 Biologically, race, fecundity and physical and mental health have been considered as
important, determinants of fertility.
 The list, of demographic factors would include the factors like age composition, sex
composition, degree of urbanization, duration of marriage, and working/non-working status
of females.
 The socio-cultural determinants of fertility would cover such factors as religious background,
education level, age of marriage, traditions and customs relating to martial and sexual life,
primacy of individuals, attitude of people towards family restrictions, desire for having a
son and public policies.
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 Among the economic factors, the most prominent is, of course, the level of income. Closely
related with this is the standard of living and resultant diet.
It may be pointed out that it is not an exhaustive list of factors determining fertility. In fact, the
human fertility is controlled by a large number of personal psychological factors working in specific
situations and, therefore, it may not be possible to prepare an exhaustive inventory of all these
factors.
INDIA:
As per National Family Health Survey-4
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The First National Family Health Survey (NFHS-1) was conducted in 1992-93,
NFHS-2 in 1998-99, NFHS-3 in 2005-2006 and NFHS-4 in 2015-16
6. Total Fertility Rate
 The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) declined to 2.2 children per woman from 2.7 in NFHS-3. This
rate shows that the country is moving closer to target level of 2.1(Replacement fertility
Rate).
 The survey found that there was considerable decline in the TFR in each of the 30 states in
India.
 The maximum decline was observed in Uttar Pradesh (1.1 child) followed by Nagaland (1.0
child), Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim (0.9 child each). Bihar, however, failed to register
substantial decline.
SPATIAL DISPARITIES IN FERTILITY:
From the National family survey data, it can be concluded that:
(i) The smaller states have low crude birth rate;

(ii) The states with sizeable proportion of Christian population have low birthrates;
(iii) The states with significant proportion of Muslim population (except J & K and Kerala) have high
birth rates;
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(iv) South and the northeast have low birth rates
(v) The large and most populous states (EAG states) still have significantly high birth rates; and
(vi) The contribution of EAG states in the fertility revolution of the country is going to be much
more crucial in the years to come.
Another aspect is that there exist significant vertical disparities in the fertility rates of various
sections of Indian society such as the Hindus and Muslims; scheduled castes and the non-scheduled
castes; the Christian and the non-Christian tribes; the educated and the illiterates; the rich and poor
etc. It necessitates an in-depth analysis of the factors that govern the fertility behavior at individual
couple’s level.
Though it may not be possible to offer an all exhaustive list of determinants of fertility working at
micro level, yet we can address bur enquiry to the role of such determinants of fertility as: age at
marriage of females; age at marriage of the males; inter-spouse age-gap; duration of marriage; age
at the time of first birth; age at “the time of subsequent births; interval between consummation of
marriage and the first birth; spacing between subsequent parities; incidence of pregnancy wastage;
incidence of infant mortality (males as well as females); duration of breast feeding; working status
of the females; family income, religion, caste, educational status (of females and males); social
status of women; incidence of preference for male children; and the acceptability level of family
planning measures. In the following paragraphs an attempt would be made to elaborate the working
of these critical factors. The following figures depict the spatial variation in fertility.
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19
Spatially, the size and regional diversity of India is likely to introduce an element of regional disparity
in the fertility level. Manipur (15.4), Kerala (14.7), and ‘Goa (13.5) had the distinction of having
lowest crude birth rate in the country. These states displayed lowest birth rate due to these being
the most literate states and due to their sizeable proportion of Christian population and non-
agricultural workers. Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state, the overwhelmingly agricultural state,
and the heartland of Hindi belt having a sizeable proportion of Muslim population, was at the other
end of the scale displaying the highest birth rate of 28.7 per thousand (2009).
Tamil Nadu (16.3), Tripura (14.8), Nagaland (17.2), Punjab (17.0), West Bengal (17.2), Himachal Pradesh
(17.2), Sikkim (18.1), Maharashtra (17.6), Andhra Pradesh (18.3), Mizoram (17.6), etc. were the other
states where the crude birth rate was significantly low. Other states that too displayed comparatively
low birth rate included Jammu and Kashmir (18.6), Karnataka (19.5), Uttarakhand (19.7), Odisha
(21.0), Arunachal Pradesh (21.1) and Gujarat (22.3). All these states also had a birth rate of less than
the national average of 22.5. A meaningful education of the girl child has been most critical factor in
bringing down the fertility rates in some of these spates. Himachal Pradesh is the typical example in
this regard. It has recorded a significant decline in its Birth Rate from 22.1 in 2000 to 17.2 in 2009, just
in a period of 9 years. In Himachal Pradesh more than 71 per cent of girls have received education of
above Plus Two Level, while the corresponding figure for Madhya Pradesh and Bihar was only 15%
and 19% respectively. The impact of such accomplishment on education front of Himachal Pradesh
was that only 9 per cent of the currently married women in rural Himachal Pradesh had married
before attaining the age of 18 years.
In comparison, Uttar Pradesh (28.7), Bihar (28.5), Madhya Pradesh (27.7), Rajasthan (27.2),
Chhattisgarh (25.7), Jharkhand (25.6), Meghalaya (24.4), Assam (23.6), Haryana (22.7) were the states
where the birth rate was higher than the national average of 22.5. Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh,
Bihar, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand were six out of eight EAG states and were thus the
real cause of worry for the country as far as its fertility transition is concerned. These were the large
states of the Hindi heartland whichGUIDANCE
were still continuing with IASsignificantly high birth rates. These six
states alone had about 45 per cent of theMcountry’s population.
ORE THAN A COACHING..... It implies that the pace of fertility
decline in these states, accounting for two-fifths of the country’s population, has been rather slow.
Fortunately, the crude death rate in these states has declined sharply and now ranges between 7.0
and 8.2 which is either below or close to the national average of 7.3. Interestingly, most of these
states, with the exception of those located in the northeast, were large and densely populated
states. The state of Haryana, which has fairly high per capita income and where literacy rates too are
comparable with national averages, is the intriguing example of this group. May be that the low
status granted to the women in this state has some explanation for this disappointing feature of the
state.
Most of the union territories except Dadra & Nagar Haveli (27.0) displayed a crude birth rate of less
than the national average, perhaps due to the fact that most of these were highly urbanized. That is
why, their birth rates compared fairly well with the national average for urban areas. However,
among the various union territories of India, Lakshadweep (15.0) displayed the lowest crude birth
rate. It was followed by Pondicherry (16.5), Andaman & Nicobar (16.3), Daman and Diu (19.2), Delhi
(18.1), and Chandigarh (15.9). The union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, which was largely a
rural territory, displayed the highest birth rate of 27.0 per thousands.
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1. SEX RATIO:
A) Sex Ratio: INDIA:
In India, from 1900 onwards, the number of women has always been less as compared to the men.
In the beginning of the 20th century; India had a sex ratio of 972, which continued to decline till
1941. It is good to know that sex ratio in India has improved 10 points in census of 2011 as compared
to census of 2001.As per the census 2011 the sex ratio in India is 943 per 1000 males which was 933 in
the previous census 2001.
The major cause of the decrease of the female birth ratio in India is considered to be the violent
treatments meted out to the girl child at the time of the birth and the biased attitude which is
meted out to the women. The main cause of this gender bias is inadequate education. Pondicherry
and Kerala houses the maximum number of female while the regions of Daman and Diu and Haryana
have the lowest density of female population. Main factors include:
1. GUIDANCE
Social factors- patriarchal society IAS
with more male-centric thoughts forces family to have male
MORE THAN
child with old beliefs like family nomination, A COACH
male ING.....
child seen as the caretaker of parents in
their old age, performers of funeral rituals of parents, to prevent the division of farmlands
with husband’s family etc. Lack of education makes the society unable to follow right attitude
towards girl child.
2. Technological factors- advent of science and technology like ultrasonography has made it
possible to conduct antenatal sex detection and gender-biased selective abortions.
3. Economic factors- due to prevalent social evils like dowry, daughters are considered as economic
burden for family. So family prefers to have male child as a earning source as well as to reduce
economic burden
4. Lack of awareness- due to low contribution of women in the economy and income of households
women are not considered as important as men.
Security issues-women and girls are considered as more prone to harassment and weaker sections
who need protection and fear for losing family honor if something go wrong.
1
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2
As Per NFHS-4:
 As per the survey, the sex ratio at birth has improved from 914 in NFHS-3 to 919 in NFHS-4
 At the national level, over the last decade, the highest in Kerala (1,047), followed by Meghalaya
(1,009) and Chhattisgarh (977).
 Haryana also witnessed a significant increase from 762 to 836.
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3
A) WORLD PATTERN OF SEX RATIO:
Sex ratio is the demographic concept that measures the proportion of males to females in a given
population. It is usually measured as the number of males per 100 females. The ratio is expressed as
in the form of 105:100, wherein this example there would be 105 males for every 100 females in a
population.
Sex Ratio at Birth
The average natural sex ratio for humans at birth is approximately 105:100. Scientists are not sure
why there are 105 males born for every 100 females around the world.
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SEX RATIO OF THE WORLD IN DIFFERENT AGE GROUPS AS OF 2011
1. Current world sex ratio at birth: 1.07 male(s)/female (107 baby boys to 100 baby girls)
2. Current world sex ratio under 15 years: 1.07 male(s)/female (107 boys to 100 girls)
3. Current world sex ratio for 15-64 years: 1.02 male(s)/female (102 men to 100 women)
4. Current world sex ratio for 65 years and over: 0.79 male(s)/female (79 men to 100 women)
5. Current world sex ratio for total population: 1.01 male(s)/female (101 men to 100 women)
Sex ratio at birth has recently emerged as an indicator of certain kinds of sex discrimination in some
countries. For instance, low sex ratios at birth in some Asian countries are now attributed to sex-
selective abortion and infanticide due to a strong preference for sons. This will affect future marriage
patterns and fertility patterns. Eventually, it could cause unrest among young adult males who are
unable to find partners.
4
2. AGE STRUCTURE:
Relative percentage of various age groups in the population is called age structure of the population.
Age group is generally divided into children (up to 14 years), working-age (15 - 59 years) and aged
(60 years and above).The age structure of a population is the distribution of people among various
ages. It is a useful tool for social scientists, public health and health care experts, policy analysts,
and policy-makers because it illustrates population trends like rates of births and deaths. These are
important to understand because they have a host of social and economic implications in society,
like understanding the resources that must be allocated for childcare, schooling, and healthcare,
and the familial and greater social implications of whether there are more children or elderly in
society. In graphic form, age structure is portrayed as an age pyramid that shows the youngest age
cohort at the bottom, with each additional layer showing the next oldest cohort. Typically males are
indicated on the left and females on the right.
Apart from purely demographic concerns, the age-sex data structure is required for age-specific
analysis of data for planning, scientific, technical and commercial purposes. The dependency ratio,
which is the ratio of economically active to economically inactive persons, is dependent on age
composition.
A) Age Structure: INDIA:
India has one of the largest proportions of population in the younger age groups in the world. 35.3%
of the population of the country has been in the age group 0-14 years at the Census 2001. 41% of the
population account for less than 18 years of age. Census 2001 data on marital status of persons show
that out of over a billion population of the country, 513 million (49.8%) have reported ‘Never married’,
mainly due to high proportion of young people. The ‘Married’ constitute about 45.6% of the total
population.
The number ‘Widowed’ persons, mostly females, are more than 44 million in the country. In the age
group 15-49 years, the prime childbearing age group, 81.4% of the women are married. This
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percentage is high due to lower female IAS
age at marriage in many parts of the country.
5
POPULATION COMPOSITION OF INDIA AS PER 2011 CENSUS
The data on population by age and sex is vital for demographers, health administrators etc. for
planning and evaluation of various developmental and health programs. The classification of rural/
urban, sex and marital status by age unveils the characteristics of population composition and
provides disaggregated data for target oriented projects. Being one of the most important
demographic characteristics, data on age is collected and updated in both half-yearly surveys of SRS
(Sample Registration system) for all the members of the household covered in the sample units.
As per available data from SRS, there has been a gradual decline in the share of population in the
age group 0-14 from 41.2 to 38.1 per cent during 1971 to 1981 and 36.3 to 29.5 percent during 1991 to
2011, whereas, the proportion of economically active population (15-59 years) has increased from
53.4 to 56.3 percent during 1971 to 1981 and 57.7 to 62.5 per cent during 1991 to 2011(A case of
Demographic Dividend as the result of specific stage of demographic transition that the country
undergoing as whole) . On account of better education, health facilities and increase in life
expectancy, the percentage of elderlyGUIDANCE IAS
population (60+) has gone up from 5.3 to 5.7 percent and 6.0
to 8.0 percent respectively during the periods under reference. Marital status and Female mean age
at marriage are essential constituents to monitor fertility and population growth. There is a marginal
increase in the proportion of married Female from 45.7 in 1991 to 48.9 in 2011, whereas the proportion
of widowed/divorced/separated female has remained stagnant at 8.2. The mean age at effective
marriage for Female has improved from 19.3 years in 1990 to 21.2 years in 2011.
AGE COMPOSITION:
It is observed that for most of the age groups, Male-Female differences in the age distribution of
population are negligible except in the combined age-group of 0-14, 15-59, 60+ & 65+. In the age-
group 0-14, Male population is about one percent more than the Female, whereas in the age-group
60+ as also 65+, percentage of Female is 0.7 percent more than Male. The proportion of young
children in the age group 0-4 and also the proportion of population in the age group 0-14 are higher
in rural areas than in urban areas both for Male and Female. A higher proportion of Male and Female
in the working-age group 15-59 live in urban areas as compared to rural areas.
6
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7
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B) AGE STRUCTURE OF WORD POPULATION:
Age structure
A youth bulge is evident for Africa, and to a lesser extent for West Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia
and parts of the Americas. According to the 2006 CIA World Fact book, around 27% of the world’s
population is below 15 years of age
• 0–14 years: 26.3% (male 944,987,919/female 884,268,378)
• 15–64 years: 65.9% (male 2,234,860,865/female 2,187,838,153)
• 65 years and over: 7.9% (male 227,164,176/female 289,048,221) (2011 est.)
• Median Age - 28.4 years (male: 27.7 years, female: 29 years, 2009 est.)
According to a report by the Global Social Change Research Project, worldwide, the percent of the
population age 0-14 declined from 34% in 1950 to 27% in 2010. On the other hand, the percent
elderly (60+) increased during the same period from 8% to 11%.
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Median age by country. A youth bulge is evident for Africa, and to a lesser extent for West Asia,
South Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of the Americas
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3. Literacy:
Although it is difficult to establish a cause-effect relationship, the empirical observations about the
literacy patterns have revealed a clear correlation between the literacy transition & the demographic
transition of Indian society. Some demographers observed in 1955 that if literacy transition is low
that will slow down the economic development and vice versa.
In general, the literacy rate in an area is determined by a variety of historical, social & economic
factors, some of these include:
1) Political ideology of the society.
2) Stage of technological advancement (education is core).
3) Type of economy (e.g.: agrarian: reliance on education is lesser).
4) Standard of living: more economic resources available: More literacy.
5) Development of transportation & communication.
6) Status of women in the society.
7) Public policy: India: Mid-Day Meal scheme, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (special components of
female literacy were added).
8) Cost of education: In Scandinavia, high-quality education is free. Privatization of education as

in India leads to increased school dropouts, gap between male & female literacy etc.
9) Availability of educational institutions.
10) Prejudice against female mobility & education.

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12) Link between education and unemployment policies. IAS
13) Religious backgrounds: some promote modern education & some are still orthodox.
14) Degree of Urbanisation.
A) LITERACY PATTERNS in INDIA:
i) Temporal Pattern:-
Census year Average literacy Male literacy Female literacy Gender
gapliteracy
1951 18.3% 27.1% 8.9% 18.3%
1981 43.5% 56.4% 29.8% 26.6%
1991 52.2% 64.1% 39.3% 24.8%
2001 64.8% 75.26% 56.7% 21.6%
2011 74% 82.1% 65.5% 16.6%
Between 2001 & 2011, there is a 12% increase in female literacy.
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Planning Commission had planned to reduce the gender gap to 10%. But it is still significant as it is
the first census of India where the growth in female literacy has outpaced the growth in male
literacy. Overall, absolute number of illiterates has come down by about 3.2 crore. *30.4 crore in
2001, 27.2 crore in 2011.Out of total no. of new literates added (21.7 crore) the females outnumbered
the males.
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12
ii) Spatial pattern:
 In terms of top-performing & least performing states, there is no change. E.g. Kerala vs. Bihar
 In case of Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu &
Andaman & Nicobar and Chandigarh- ranking has been downgraded despite an overall
improvement in literacy. This is because of greater improvement in terms of percentage in
Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim, Manipur & union territories like Dadra.
B) Nagar Haveli, Delhi, and Pondicherry & Lakshadweep.

*Below shown table can be reproduced on the map of INDIA+.
Bihar has shown significant improvement (2001: 47%, 2011: 63.8%)

There is also a clear distinction between EAG states & Non-EAG states. In 2011, EAG states accounted
for 68.8% literacy, while Non-EAG 78.2% literacy, close to a gap of 10%. This reflects that economic
factors have a very strong role in determining the patterns of literacy along with some social factors.
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13
A) WORLD LITERACY:
Global literacy has grown substantially in the last two centuries. The following visualization presents
estimates of world literacy for the period 1800-2014. As we can see, literacy rates grew constantly
but rather slowly until the beginning of the twentieth century. And the rate of growth really climbed
after the middle of the 20th century, when the expansion of basic education became a global priority.
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World Literacy Rate as per 2015:
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WORK FORCE:
A) WORK FORCE PARTICIPATION RATE: INDIA
The participation of women in the labour force varies considerably across developing countries and
emerging economies, far more than in the case of men. In the Middle East, North Africa and South
Asia, less than one-third of women of working-age participate, while the proportion reaches around
two-thirds in East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. This variation is driven by a wide variety of economic
and social factors including economic growth, increasing educational attainment, falling fertility
rates and social norms. Besides labour market gender gaps are more pronounced in developing
countries, and disparity is highest in South Asian countries.
As per the Census 2011, the workforce participation rate for females is 25.51% against 53.26% for
males. Workforce participation is less equal for rural and urban males, but there is a huge gap in
rural and urban female workforce participation. Rural India has more than 50% workers in self-
employed category, whereas Urban India has more than 40% workers in self-employed and regular
wage categories as per NSS 68th Round(2011-12).
Female participation in labour force has remained lower than the male participation as women
account for most of the unpaid work, and when women are employed in paid work, they are
overrepresented in the informal sector and among the poor. They also face significant wage
differentials vis-à-vis their male counterparts. It has been observed that LFPR is the lowest for
urban females.
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Worker Population Ratio:
National Sample Survey (68th Round) results indicate that the worker population ratio for females
in rural sector was 24.8 in 2011-12 and 54.3 for males. In Urban sector, the ratio is 14.7 for females and
54.6 for males. Among the major States, the disparity in worker population ratio between male and
female is highest in Bihar so far as rural area is concerned whereas Assam and Gujarat have high
disparity in the urban sector.
Unemployment rate:
The unemployment rate for women in rural area was 2.9 against 2.1 for men whereas it was 6.6 & 3.2
for women & men in urban areas during 2011-12. The unemployment rate is 4.9 for females as
compared to 2.9 for males aged 15 years and above as per the 4th Employment -Unemployment
Survey.
Average wage/salary received by regular wage/salaried employees:
In the same period, the average wage/salary received by regular wage/salaried employees of
economically active age group was Rs. 428.66 per day for females compared with Rs. 550.23 per day
for males in rural areas. For urban areas, it was Rs. 609.7 and Rs. 805.52 per day for females and males
respectively. Most of the Union Territories hail to give the maximum wages in each of the categories.
1
Among the factors that influence the participation rate are:
 The wages on offer. High wages will encourage more people to seek work and will persuade
some to stay in the labour force, past the usual retirement age.
 Social attitudes to working women. In countries, where it is acceptable for women to work,
there will be a larger labour force and a greater participation rate.
 Provision for the care of children and the elderly. Greater is the availability of nursery places
and retirement homes, higher is the labour participation rate.
 Social attitudes and provision for the disabled to work. The greater the number of people
willing to accept disabled people working and the easier it is made for the disabled to work
(for instance, having ramps installed for wheelchair access), the more potential workers
there will be.
 The proportion of school leavers who go for higher education. The more people there are in
full time education, the lower the participation rate. Though, it reduces the size of the
labour force, a high proportion of people in full time education raises the quality of the
labour force.
Another key indicator of labour market activity is the employment rate or ratio. This is the percentage
of those of working age in employment. The employment rate of a country is again influenced by
the attitudes to working women and the disabled labour, participation in post-
compulsory full time education, preferred age of retirement, the level of economic activity and the
gap between wages and benefits.
So, for instance, if there is a high level of demand in the economy, the employment rate is likely to
be high.
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2
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3
WHAT EXPLAINS LOW WOMEN PARTICIPATION IN INDIA?
The decision of and ability for women to participate in the labour force is the outcome of various
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economic and social factors that interact IAS
in a complex fashion at both the household and macro
level. Based on global evidence, some of the MOmost
RE THimportant drivers
AN A COACHING..... include educational attainment,
fertility rates and the age of marriage, economic growth/cyclical effects, and urbanization. In addition
to these issues, social norms determining the role of women in the public domain continue to affect
outcomes.
In India, much of the discussion on the falling trends has focused on four key explanations: 1) rising
educational enrolment of young women; 2) lack of employment opportunities; 3) effect of household
income on participation; and 4) measurement.
Over the last decade or so, India has made considerable progress in increasing access to education
for girls as increasing numbers of women of working age are enrolling in secondary schools.
Nonetheless, the nature of economic growth in the country has meant that jobs were not created in
large numbers in sectors that could readily absorb women, especially for those in rural areas. Despite
inadequate job creation, household incomes did raise, which potentially reduced women’s
participation, especially in subsidiary activities (“income effect”) due to change in preferences.
Finally, though most women in India work and contribute to the economy in one form or another,
much of their work is not documented or accounted for in official statistics, and thus women’s work
tends to be under-reported. In India, a substantially high proportion of females report their activity
status as attending to domestic duties.
In 2011-12, 35.3 per cent of all rural females and 46.1 per cent of all urban females in India were
attending to domestic duties, whereas these rates were 29 per cent and 42 per cent respectively in
1993-94. Therefore, mis- measurement may not only affect the level but also the trend in the
participation rate.
4
B) WORLD WORK FORCE
In almost every country in the world, men are more likely to participate in labour markets than
women. However, these gender differences in participation rates have been narrowing substantially
in recent decades. General trend of world labour participation is as follows
 In most countries men tend to participate in labor markets more frequently than women.
 All over the world, labor force participation among women of working age increased
substantially in the last century.
 In some parts of the world, the historical increase in female labor force participation has
slowed down or even regressed slightly in recent years.
 Women all over the world allocate a substantial amount of time to activities that are not
typically recorded as ‘economic activities’. Hence, female participation in labor markets
tends to increase when the time-cost of unpaid care work is reduced, shared equally with
men, and/or made more compatible with market work.
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5
1. LONGEVITY:
The World Health Organization defines life expectancy as “the average number of years a person is
expected to live on the basis of the current mortality rates and prevalent social infrastructure;
especially health infrastructure in a population”. In India the average life expectancy which is used
to be around 42 in 1960 steadily climbed to around 48 in in 1980 and around 62 in 2000.
Statistics released by the Union ministry of health and family welfare show that life expectancy in
India has gone up by five years, from 62.3 years for males and 63.9 years for females in 2001-2005 to
67.3 years and 69.6 years respectively in 2011-2015.This improvement is attributed to better diet
and immunization over the decades.
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6
TRENDS IN WORLD- LIFE EXPECTANCY AS OF 2013:
2. AGING:
Why is the population ageing?

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The ageing of the world’s populations is the result
MORE THAN ofA CO
continued
ACHING.....decline in fertility rates coinciding
with increasing life expectancy. This demographic change has resulted in increasing numbers and
proportions of people who are over 60. As a result, the inevitable period in the history of mankind
where there will be older people than younger people is rapidly approaching.
The three areas which have a direct impact on ageing are:
 Prevention of chronic disease;

 access to age-friendly primary health care;
 Creation of age-friendly environments.
A. INDIA:
As India moves closer to become the most populous country in the world, the country is facing
another serious concern about ageing population. According to some studies, India is ageing much
faster than previously thought and may have nearly 20 per cent population of 60 years and above by
2050. The government recently stated in Parliament that India will have 34 crore people above 60
years of age by 2050 that would be more than the total population of the US. This number is even
higher than projected by other international agencies like UN and Help Age. The agencies had
projected the 60-plus population in India to rise to nearly 32 crore by 2050. The increasing ageing
population would definitely emerge as a major social challenge in the country mainly due to increased
7
old age dependency ratio. India’s age dependency ratio is also increasing, standing at 14.2 against
10.9 in 2001. It brings more economic pressure on working population.
The numbers reveal that India may lose demographic dividend and stare at a situation where
a large number of population will be dependent including old age, widowed and highly dependent
women. The twin challenges of rising population and old age dependents will only add to India’s
troubles of providing jobs, education, and health care along with geriatric care. “India Ageing Report
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2017” by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says the share of population over the age of
60 could increase from 8 per cent in 2015 to 19 per cent in 2050
INDIA’S DEPENPENDENCY RATIO THROUGH DECADES (1950-2050)
8
A. AGEING: WORLD:
The world’s population is ageing: virtually every country in the world is experiencing growth in the
number and proportion of older persons in their population. Population ageing is poised to become
one of the most significant social transformations of the twenty-first century, with implications for
nearly all sectors of society, including labour and financial markets, the demand for goods and
services, such as housing, transportation and social protection, as well as family structures and
intergenerational ties. According to data from World Population Prospects: the 2017 Revision, the
number of older persons — those aged 60 years or over — is expected to become more than double
by 2050 and to more than triple by 2100, rising from 962 million globally in 2017 to 2.1 billion in 2050
and 3.1 billion in 2100. Globally, population aged 60 or over is growing faster than all younger age
groups.
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Demographic drivers of population ageing
The size and age composition of a population are determined jointly by three demographic processes:
fertility, mortality and migration.
All regions have experienced substantial increases in life expectancy since 1950. As the life
expectancy at birth increases, improvements in survival at older ages account for a growing proportion
of the overall improvement in longevity.
While declining fertility and increasing longevity are the key drivers of population ageing globally,
international migration has also contributed to changing population age structures in some countries
and regions. In countries that are experiencing large immigration flows, international migration can
slow the ageing process, at least temporarily, since migrants tend to be in the young working ages.
However, migrants who remain in the country eventually will age into the older population.
9
LEVELS AND TRENDS IN POPULATION AGEING:
Globally, population aged 60 or over is growing faster than all younger age groups. In 2017, there are
an estimated 962 million people aged 60 or over in the world, comprising 13 per cent of the global
population. The population aged 60GUIDANCE
or above is growing at aIASrate of about 3 per cent per year.
Currently, Europe has the greatest percentage of population aged 60 or over (25 per cent). Rapid
ageing will occur in other parts of the world as well, so that by 2050 all regions of the world except
Africa will have nearly a quarter or more of their populations at ages 60 and above. The number of
older persons in the world is projected to be 1.4 billion in 2030 and 2.1 billion in 2050, and could rise
to 3.1 billion in 2100.
10
Globally, the number of persons aged 80 or over is projected to triple by 2050, from 137 million in
2017 to 425 million in 2050. By 2100 it is expected to increase to 909 million, nearly seven times its
value in 2017.
What roles do older people take on in society?
Older persons are increasingly seen as contributors to development, whose abilities to act for the
betterment of them and their societies should be woven into policies and programmes at all levels.
In the coming decades many countries are likely to face fiscal and political pressures in relation to
public systems of health care, pensions and social protections for a growing older population. Older
persons work in a paid or unpaid capacity, care for family members and friends, and carry out after-
retirement work in organizations and associations. They pass their experiences onto younger
generations and by doing so; they help them strengthen their capacities. A high percentage of older
people care for their grandchildren or other relatives and friends regularly and thus, in case of
grandchildren, are supporting their children. In Africa, for example, family support of grandparents
plays a particularly important role supporting children, as the parent’s generation has been strongly
impacted by the effects of HIV/AIDS. Nowadays, the concept of longevity dividend is gaining currency
vis-à-vis economic and other contributions of old age people is concerned.
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I. Historical perspective of Indian Society:

Indian society is characterized by high heterogeneity. It is reflected in number of things viz., Race,
Religion, languages as:
 Almost all racial stocks are represented in India.
 Reflected in language & different families of language found in India.
 Presence of Religion: all universal religions are found in India.
 Reflected in the Economic structure: Various types of agrarian centers, Industries, Services
etc.
 Diversity reflected in architecture, cuisines.
 Diversity reflected in physical features.
India represents presence of different cultures & ethnic groups living side by side each other. Each
of them having their own Genre de vie.
Origin of Diversity:
Concept of Carl Sauer – development of cultural landscape.

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Basic reasons: Diversity is traced to presence
MOREofTH
diverse physical
AN A COACH ING.....locations in India like presence of
mountains, hills, plateau, plains, forested, coastal land. It can be classified into three parts:
People settled in river valleys:
 Cultures developed in higher elevation of river valleys.
 Rivers provided routes for migration.
 Every migration stream which arrived, tried to find suitable condition which existed in
their original place.
 Khyber Pass – gateway to India: first culture to be settled was in Haryana area/western part.
 The original inhabited people were displaced towards east. They followed the river valley
paths viz., Ganga-Yamuna route which resulted into formation of Indo-Gangetic cultural
hearth.
 Presence of Chotanagpur plateau: so migration occurred along valley of son river and then
migrated to west (Valley of Narmada).
 There they settled – because it was a suitable place for habitation – Basaltic soil – good for
agricultural cotton.
1
 They settled in valley of Narmada and around Malwa plateau & Maharashtra plateau – then
from there they migrated to Krishna-Godavari valley and to coastal lands of Andhra Pradesh.
 From here they descended to Coromandel Coast and into the interiors of Tamil Nadu and
Kaveri, Vaigai river valley.
 And ultimately they migrated to the southern-western coast
 Malabar Coast and Maidan region of Karnataka.
With these developments there was development of nuclear civilization – agrarian civilisation –
better agriculture technologies.
 Cul-de-Sacs (places of refuges)
 moved to interior parts. ex:
a) Central and eastern tribal belt: inhabited by refuges – couldn’t compete with later migrants
— Primitive tribals.
b) Western Ghats region of Nilgiris: refugee pushed to these regions.
c) Thar: More primitive community (hunting and gathering) settled.
d) Kashmir: Refugee for Islam – Islam retreating.
 In between Cul-de-sacs and nuclear region there exists a transition zone (dominated/settled
by pastoral community). E.g.: Nuclear region: Agriculturalists. Cul-de-sacs region: Tribal-
Hunters. Transition region: Pastoral community.
 In Himalayas, migrants come from North, North-east and east, mongoloid communities
MORE TH
displaying different forms of ethnicity. AN Anever
They COACHING.....
became part of mainland because of
presence of barriers to diffusion.
Thus, variability in ethnicity is a result of variability in physiography of Himalayas.
 Super imposition of cultures during medieval periods led to development of languages,

architecture and other administrative practices which later became part and parcel of the
Indian culture.
 Ultimately British culture was superimposed on Indian culture.
Thus, from time immemorial different streams of culture originated from western, eastern and
central Asia have made incursion into Indian Society. Being at different stages of social evolution
these cultural groups found for themselves ecological niches which suited the continuation of
their specific modes of living.
The physiographic heterogeneity, thus, played an important role in determining the location of
these cultural streams. In the course of chequered social history these cultural communities were
distributed & redistributed in space promoting development of some areas with specific ethnicity.
In the process there was intermingling between different cultures although some remain isolated
in geographical space. Thus, there was development of atleast 3 type of broad cultural groups.
First: was associated with agricultural pioneer communities which settled in nuclear region
associated with major river valleys. These became dominant cultures of India.
2
Second: important regions were places of refuges refer to as Cul-de-Sacs where earliest and primitive
cultures were pushed. The Cul-de-Sacs are geographically isolated & thus saved the primitive
communities from on-slaughts of later migrant cultures.
A 3rd region also developed which was mainly a transition zone between these 2 types of cultures.
These transmission zones are settled mainly by pastoralist communities which also provided the
links between these 2 cultural regions.
Some important nuclear regions developed included the Indus basin, Ganga-Yamuna Doabs, Gangetic
plains, Malwa plateau, saurashtra region, Maharashtra plateau & Dravidian south where 4 distinct
nuclear regions can be identified with coastal Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Maidan region of
Karnataka & Malabar Coast. Later some other cultures were emerged for ex; Kalinga country of
Orissa.
II. Racial, linguistic and ethnic diversities:

Plurality and multiplicity characterize Indian society and culture. India has accommodated and
assimilated various outside elements into its growing culture. However, it has never been a ‘melting
pot’ in which all differences got dissolved and a uniform identity was created. India is a shining
example of a ‘salad bowl’ in which different elements retain their individual identities and yet,
together, they form a distinct recipe. It is in that sense that India is a unity in diversity, guided by the
principle of tolerance (Sahishnuta) and mutual respect.
Any living society is a product of its past. Through changes that occur internally, or are brought
about by outside factors, societies continually redefine themselves. Through these processes,
societies change in their demography, in their material culture, in their values, norms, and traditions,
and in the patterns of behaviour of their members.
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Just as a newborn develops into a young, M
then anAN
ORE TH adult, andINeven
A COACH G..... later into an old person, so also
does society grow. And just as a person continues to maintain his/her identity despite radical
changes in his/her appearance, so also does a society maintain its identity in the midst of changes.
In that sense, the Indian society of today is vastly different from what it was a hundred or a thousand
years ago, and yet its composite culture is made up of the elements that it has retained from its
past and the new elements that it has added from time to time. No living society is static. The pace
of change may be slow or fast.
When changes are slow in a society, it is termed a traditional society. But this does not mean that a
traditional society is changeless. As one of the oldest civilizations, Indian society is a good example
of continuity and change. Contemporary Indian society cannot be understood in terms of what is
written in the Shastras and the Smritis. Our past provides a foundation on which the present is
built, but it does not define the emerging contours of a living society.
Indian civilization is about 5,000 years old. It has a chequered history. This vast subcontinent has
seen several waves of migration. Groups of people coming from different corners of the world with
different intentions confronted the local populace and were finally accepted. Each such interaction
resulted in give and take between the host community and the arriving migrants.
Their differences and the intermingling of traits continually changed the living culture of the people
and enriched the growing Indian civilization. Historians seem to be of the view that people called
Aryans inhabited the Indus river valley almost 2,500 years before the birth of Christ.
3
Since they belonged to the same racial stock and spoke the same language, the term, Aryan, was
used to distinguish them from the relatively dark-skinned people speaking Dravidian languages.
Ethnically, the Aryans represented the Caucasoid and the Dravidians the Proto-Australoid races.
The Aryans overwhelmed Northern India, while the Dravidians moved south. Deriving from the
river Indus, also called the Sindhu, the evolving religion of the area came to be known as Hindu,
which built on the Vedas of the Aryans and gradually assimilated many local cults and traditions.
Buddhism began as a protest against the rigidities occurring within Hinduism somewhere around
500 BC and soon spread to other Asian lands.
The Greeks, under Alexander the Great, invaded the country in 327 BC, but they were soon driven
out. Chandragupta Maurya was the first Indian ruler who succeeded in extending his empire across
the whole of North India with its capital at the present site of Patna (then known as Patliputra), the
capital of Bihar.
The Maurya Empire reached its peak during the reign of Ashok, the grandson of Chandragupta
Maurya, who ruled from 273 to 232 BC. He converted to Buddhism and sent his emissaries to distant
lands to spread the new religion. But in another hundred years, the Mauryas lost their hold when
other empires rose and fell. The Sunga dynasty was one of these that ruled for a hundred years.
This dynasty brought back Hinduism, replacing Buddhism. In 320 AD, another ruler named Chandra
Gupta founded the Gupta dynasty, which lasted for 160 years.
The Huns, who entered Indian Territory around 450 AD, defeated the Guptas. The Gupta period is
described as the Golden Age of India because it was during this time that both arts and sciences
flourished in the country. The famous Sanskrit poet, Kalidas, lived during this period. By the end of
the 5th Century AD, Northern India got divided into various Hindu kingdoms.
The Southern part of India remained relatively untouched by the mighty empires of the North. It
was also divided into different kingdoms and had its own maritime trade relations with other
countries such as Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
However, spiritual and intellectual linkages got strengthened between the North and the South.
Rishis and religious teachers took Vedic wisdom and the Sanskrit language to the South, and
introduced there the Aryan gods and sacred rituals of their worship.
In this exchange, Dravidian gods and goddesses, and the rituals associated with them, also passed
into the Aryan stream. The two civilizations mingled and the present-day Hindu can be regarded as
a product of this fusion of cultures.
The situation changed with the arrival of Islam. The first entrants were traders who frequented the
Western coast, mostly in Malabar. Their marriages with the local women resulted in new groups
such as Moplah (in Malabar), Natia (in Konkan), and Labbais (on the East coast of Tamil Nadu). After
the 8th century, there was a continuous inflow of Muslim traders and preachers, who visited
different places and spread their religion.
However, Sindh, which is now part of Pakistan, was invaded and conquered by the Arabs in 732 AD.
Several raids were carried out by the troops of Mahmud Ghazni during 997-1030 AD. Muhammad
Ghori defeated Delhi’s king Prithviraj Chauhan, in 1192. Qutab-ud-Din Aibak established the Delhi
Sultanate in 1206; that started the period of Muslim rule in most of Northern India. It may be
mentioned that all of these invaders did not come from the same stock. The early rulers were
Turkish and Afghan in origin, and they were later superseded by the Moghuls.
The first Europeans arrived in the country in the 15th century. Portuguese sailor Vasco da Gama
landed in Kozhikode in Kerala in 1498. The Portuguese took possession of Goa in 1510. The British
East India Company arrived in 1613 and established itself on the Eastern coast. Started as a business
4
company, this organization began spreading its hold and even fought a battle with the local Muslim
rulers in Plassey in 1757.
Kolkata thus became the centre of British power. After the Indian mutiny of 1857, the East India
Company handed over control to the British Crown. The British set up an empire that consisted of
British India and a patchwork of native states owing allegiance to the British Crown. The empire
covered present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh and Myanmar (known then as Burma).
Towards the end of the 19th century, nationalist opposition to British rule became quite prominent.
This was consolidated and made more forceful under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. India
finally got its independence from the British on 15 August 1947, but it was divided into two states,
India and Pakistan. The divided Pakistan had two wings, one in the West comprising Western Punjab,
Sindh, and Baluchistan, and the other in the East, taking away the Eastern part of Bengal from India.
The partition was caused by the two-nation theory propounded by the advocates of Pakistan. They
argued that the Muslims were a separate nation and, therefore, should have a separate homeland.
Thus, the areas that went to Pakistan were those that had a preponderance of Muslims.
This resulted in the uprooting of several Hindu families from the areas that went to Pakistan. But
the partition did not change the multi-religious composition of India, as only a small percentage of
Muslims from the rest of India opted to move to Pakistan; most of them decided to stay on in India.
Racial Profile:
Biologically, all human beings belong to a single genus and species called Homo Sapiens. However,
population groups living together in different parts of the world show some physical characteristics
that distinguish them from other groups. Such biologically distinguished groups are called races.
The characteristics that help identify different racial groups include color and texture of hair, quantity
and distribution of hair on the body, color of the eyes, shape of the eyelids, shape of the nose, the
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lips, and the skull, skin color, and body height. Since in early times, people with the same racial
features stayed together, spoke the same language, and lived the same culture, race was mistakenly
used as a synonym for language, culture, religion, and a society.
It is a fallacy to think of one race as belonging to one culture. Race is a biological concept. It is wrong
to associate race with intelligence, or regard any race as superior or inferior to others. Societies
such as India that are spread in a vast area of geographical diversities have been home to several
races and have received several migrant groups from abroad over a course of thousands of years.
This has made India a multi-racial country. Moreover, through intermarriages between people of
different races, a good deal of miscegenation has occurred. Pure races are now only theoretical
constructs. This is true of India as well.
However, it will be useful to have an idea of the racial profile of India. There is very little fossil
evidence of the prehistoric times to suggest the ethnic stocks of those who inhabited the vast
subcontinent. All accounts of the Indus Valley civilization that prospered in Sindh and the Punjab,
which are now part of Pakistan, indicate that people of mixed origins and diverse racial types lived
there in those days.
Waves of migrations from different corners of the world made this country home of diverse races.
Intermarriages between people of different racial stocks have made the task of researchers rather
difficult in fixing racial origins.
During the Census operations of 1891, Sir Herbert Hope Risley attempted the first ever classification
of the people of India into different racial types. He classified them into the following seven types
Turko-Iranian, Indo-Aryan, Scytho-Dravidian, Aryo-Dravidian, Mongolo-Dravidian, Mongoloid, and
5
Dravidian. This classification was criticized by other scholars because Risley mixed linguistic
categories (Aryan and Dravidian) with the racial categories.
In earlier times, the racial boundaries might have coincided with linguistic boundaries, but
technically, language is a learnt behaviour and is not biologically transmitted. Egon von Eickstedt
propounded the theory that South India had a Proto-Negroid population long before the other
racial stocks arrived.
During the 1931 Census, B.S. Guha took anthropometric measurements in different parts of the
country to determine the physical characteristics of different groups and identified six main races
with nine subtypes. That classification is still being used, though the exact size of these groups in
Indian society cannot be determined. However, this classification is good evidence that the people
of India are composed of various racial types, making it a multi-racial country.
Guha’s classification is as given below:
1. The Negrito
2. The Proto-Australoid
3. The Mongoloid
(i) Palaeo-Mongoloid
(a) Long-headed (Dolichocephalic) (b) Broad-headed (Brachycephalic)
(ii) Tibeto-Mongoloid
4. The Mediterranean:
(i) Palaeo-Mediterranean (ii) Mediterranean (iii) Oriental

GUIDANCE IAS
5. The Western Brachycephals:
(i) Alpinoid (ii) Dinaric (iii) Armenoid
6. The Nordic:
Many scholars have disputed the existence of Negrito strain in the Indian population. Most
anthropologists agree that the earliest known inhabitants of India were probably proto-Austra-
loids, who may have received some infiltration of Negrito.
The only point that we can mention with certainty is that Indian population is composed of various
racial strains. Representatives of all the three major races of the world, namely Caucasoid,
Mongoloid, and Negroid, are found in this country. Since there has been so much miscegenation,
no race exits in its pure form and detailed sub-classification and calculation of the size of each
group is almost impossible.
India’s population includes more than 400 tribal groups spread in different parts of the country, but
largely concentrated in Central India and in the Northeast region. According to the 1991 Census, the
combined population of these groups constituted 8.08 per cent of the total population of India.
Besides these tribal communities, the Hindu population is divided into a large number of castes.
Since the enumeration of castes in the Census was discontinued in 1931, we do not have the exact
numbers of these castes, but various estimates suggest that there are more than 3,000 castes
within the Hindu fold. Both the tribes and castes are also called ethnic groups.
6
An ethnic group is said to share common racial characteristics, share a common territory, practice
the same religion, and it is an in-marrying group (which is technically called endogamous). The
division of society into ethnic groups makes India a heterogeneous society.
Linguistic Diversity:
India is rightly described as a polyglot country – a country of many languages. Linguistic research
suggests that when means of transportation were less developed, there was little mobility of
people. Therefore, communities confined to small areas spoke their own dialects. And these were
spoken in a radius of 7-8 kilometers. That is why even today there are 1,572 languages and dialects
that are each spoken by less than 1,00,000 speakers, besides the 18 Scheduled languages. Until
recently, the Census of India collected only mother tongue statistics, which gave the wrong
impression about the actual number of speakers of any language.
The fact of the matter is that many people speak more than one language; there are also instances
of people who do not speak their mother tongue, but speak other languages of the region in which
they have settled. However, it is important to note that there is no state in the Indian Union that is
monolingual in terms of mother tongue. And, in most of the states, Hindi figures among the top
three languages returned as a mother tongue.
The 1991 Census mentions Hindi as the most prominent mother tongue, spoken by 39.85 per cent of
people; if we add Urdu to it, which uses a different script, but the same grammar, and is, therefore,
commonly understood, the percentage will go up to 44.98. Certainly, the number of speakers of
this language is much greater than this percentage, which consists only of those who reported
Hindi or Urdu as their mother tongue.
The comparative strength of scheduled languages, in terms of those returning them as mother
tongue is shown in Table 1.
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7
The table shows that barring Sanskrit, which is reported to be the mother tongue of less than 50,000
people, each of the remaining 17 languages is spoken by more than a million people, with Manipuri
spoken by 1.27 million people and Hindi by 337 million people, according to the 1991 Census. If we
assume the same percentage of people reporting Hindi as the mother tongue in the recently held
2001 Census, then the figure will be as high as 410 million people.
The table does not give the number of persons who regard English as their mother tongue. But we
all know that most educated persons in India have a fair knowledge of English. An exact idea of
India’s linguistic profile can be had only when we have data about the number of languages spoken
by each individual.
Such a statistics will put the number of Hindi speaking persons much higher than the mother
tongue statistics that we have presented in the above table. However, even these data reflect the
great linguistic diversity of India.
Moreover, each of these 18 languages has rich literature; there are also several Indian writers who
have earned international fame by writing in English, not only fiction, but also on technical subjects.
It should be mentioned that linguistic diversity is found in each of the states of the Indian Union. It
is true that after India got independence, the states were reorganized on the basis of language, but
such reorganization did not erase the multilingual character of the individual states.
8
Ans1. Guha's classification of Indian
races
Dr. B.S. Guha, the Ex-Director of the Anthropological Survey of India, has based his racial
classification of India on physical measurements carried out by him during the Census operation of
1931. His classification of Indian races is considered as the most authentic. He has recognised the
following six racial groups in India .
I. The Negritoes
Most probably, the Negritoes were the earliest arrivals in India. These are characterised by short
stature (150 cm), frizzy-hair, bulbous forehead, flat nose, slightly protruding jaws, small chin, black
skin colour, weak hands, and long arms. Their representatives are the Andamanese, Nicobaris, and
the hulas, Kadars, Kanikkars, Muthaiwans, Paniyans, Puliyans, Uralis living in the hills of Tamil Nadu,
Kerala, and Karnataka. The Angami-Nagas have also been considered as having some of the traits
of the Negritoes. Their arrival in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Jarawa, Ongs, Sentinelese,
Shompen, etc.) is believed to be from the Peninsula of Malaysia. In appear-ance, culture, and
traditions, they are very close to the Semangs and Sakais tribes of Malaysian Peninsula.
2. Proto-Australoids
After the Negritoes, the Proto-Australoids entered the Subcontinent of India, most probably from
Australia. Their representatives are found among the Bhils, Chenchus, Hos, Kurumbas, Mundas,
Santhals, and Yeruvas. Their common physical traits are dark brown to black-brown complexion,
broad nose, wavy to curly hair, short stature, and thick everted lips.
3. Mongoloids
The Mongoloids reached India from China, Mongolia, Tibet, Malyasia, Thailand, and Myanmar in
about the first millennium BC. They occupied the Ladakh Division of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal
Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, the Himalayan and sub-Himalayan belts, and the North Eastern
states of India.
Dr. B.S. Guha has recognised two sub-groups of Mongoloids: (a) Palaeo-Mongoloid and (b) Tibeto-
Mongoloid. The Palaeo—Mongoloid are the most primitive type which have long heads, medium
stature, light brown colour, medium nose, oblique eyes, and scanty hair on body. Their
representatives are found in the sub-Himalayan region, particularly Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, and
Indo-Myanmar (Burma) border districts. Their representatives are Daflas, Garos, Kacharis, Khasis,
Kuki-Nagas, Lalung, Machi, Miris, and Tipperas.
The Tibeto-Mongoloids are found in Bhutan, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, and
Uttarakhand. Their typical features are long stature, light yellow colour, hairy body, oblique eyes,
long nose, and flat face. The Bhutias, the Gorkhas, the Ladakhis, the Kinnauris, the Tharus are the
representatives of the Tibeto-Mongolid racial group.
4. The Mediterraneans
9
They came to India in successive waves from the Mediterranean region. Dr. Guha has identified
three sub-groups of the Mediterraneans, namely,
(i) Palaeo-Mediterranean,
(ii) Mediterranean, and
(iii) Oriental Type.
(i) Palaeo-Mediterraneans: The oldest group is the Palaeo-Mediterranean. They are characterized
by medium stature, long and narrow head, long face, short and medium nose, and brown
complexion. Perhaps they entered the subcontinent during the Neolithic Period and were pushed
into the area south of the Vindhyan Mountains in areas of isolation and relative isolation.
(ii) The Mediterraneans

The Mediterraneans have medium stature, olive brown complexion, long head and long-broad open
eyes. They are found in Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Kerala.
(iii) The Oriental Mediterraneans

The Oriental Mediterraneans were the last to enter India. Most of their physical traits are common,
but they are distinguished by long and convex nose and fair complexion. They are limited to
Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, and southern parts of Uttarakhand (District
Hardwar and Udhamsingh Nagar).
5. The Western Brachycephals

Dr. Guha has classified them into three sub-groups:
(a) Alpinoid (the Pre-Vedic Aryans)
They entered the Indus Valley and spread in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka,
Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. Later on, they entered the Gangetic Valley and reached up to West Bengal
and Orissa. They are characterised by medium stature, round face, prominent nose, straight long
hair, and fair complexion.
(b) Dinarics: The Dinarics followed the Alpinoids and reached Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. They are characterised by long stature, brown com-
plexion, long face, and sharp nose. They have mixed with Alpinoids. Their main representatives are
the people of Kathiawar and Kurg (Karnataka).
(c) The Armenoids: The Armenoids came to India from Armenia. They are characterised by medium
stature, broad head, long nose, and hairy body. Their main representatives are the Parsis of Mumbai
and Gujarat.
6. The Nordics
The Nordics or the Vedic Aryans were the last to reach the Subcontinent of India from the north-
west about the second millennium BC. They overpowered the Dravidians and established their
stronghold in the Northern Indian Plain (Aryavarat or Madhydesa). Later on, they reached South
India and founded their great kingdoms. Their main physical traits are tall stature, long head, long
face, blue eyes, and blond hair. Their representatives are found in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan,
western Uttar Pradesh, and Southern Uttarakhand among the upper castes of Rajputs and
Brahmins. They have locally intermixed with other races and ethnic groups in West Bengal and
Maharashtra.
Although Guha's classification of Indian races and ethnic groups is considered as the most reliable
one, in the contemporary world there has been too much intermingling of blood. The areas of
isolation and relative isolation have been connected by roads with the National and State Highways
10
which has resulted in more intimate interaction of the people of different races, religions and
castes. Under the changed cultural milieu of the 21st century, there are hardly any isolated groups
which are the true and typical representatives of their races and ethic groups. The division of people
in the racial, ethnic and caste groups, leads to sub-nationalism which may go against the national
interest and may retard the process of national integration.
Linguistic Diversity of India

India is a land of vastness and continuity. The people of India display high degree of diversity in their
languages and dialects. It has been acquired through a long process of peopling of the Sub-continent
by heterogeneous ethnic groups drawn from the neighbouring regions of Asia.
In free India the distribution pattern of major language groups was considered as a satisfactory
basis for the formation of States. This has given a new political meaning to the geographical pattern
of the linguistic distribution in the country. The most comprehensive data on languages was
collected at the time of 1961 census of India. According to these census figures there were 187
languages spoken by different sections of our society.
Out of these, as many as 94 languages are spoken by less than 10,000 persons each and 23
languages together account for 77 percent of the total population of the country. According to some
of the scholars, the total number of language and dialect in a country is about 700 (nearly 175
languages and 550 dialects). Out of these numerous languages, 22 are recognised as national
languages of the country as they are included in the eight schedule of the constitution.
These languages are: Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Kannada, Sanskrit, Kashmiri, Malayaiam, Marathi,
Oriya, Urdu, Konkani, Sindhi, Tamil, Telgu, Manipuri, Nepali, Punjabi and Gujarati, Maithili, Bodo,
Dogri, Santhali. Hindi is the official language of India and it is understood by the largest number of
people in the country. The languages of India can be conveniently grouped into four categories.
1. Indo-European Family (Arya)

2. Dravidian Family (Dravida)
3. Austric Family (Nishada)
4. Sino-Tibetan Family (Kirata)
It is interesting to note that the strength of the four families is very uneven: Aryan languages (73.
%), Dravidian languages (20%), Austric languages (1.38%), and the Sino-Tibetan languages (0.85%).
(1) Indo-European Family – Aryan Language:

Nearly three-fourth of population of India speaks one or the other forms of the Aryan languages.
Dardic and Indo-Aryan are its two main branch. The Dardic group includes Dardi, Shina, Kohistani
and Kashmiri. Except Kashmiri which is spoken by more than 20 lakh people, none of these speeches
11
are spoken by a population of more than 7000. The Indo-Aryan branch is subdivided into the North-
Western, Southern, Eastern, East-Central, Central and Northern groups.
Landa, Kachchi and Konkani are included in North-Western group. Marathi and Konkani are
included in Southern group. The Oriya, Bihari, Bengali and Assamese are included in Eastern group.
Among the dialects of Bihari may be included Maithili, Bhojpuri and Magadhi. The East-Central
group consists of three main sub-groups: (a) Avadhi, (b) Baghaili and (c) Chattisgarhi. The Central
Group includes Western Hindi, Punjabi, Rajasthani and Gujarati.
The Rajasthani itself consists of several dialects. The principal of them being Marwari, Mewari and
Malawi. The speeches that fall in the Northern group consist of one or other variety of Pahari
speeches. They include Nepali, Central Pahari and Western Pahari.
(2) Dravidian Language:

Davidian languages are older than the Aryan languages. According to an estimate Dravidians
entered India much before the Aryans. Other estimate indicates that they are original inhabitant of
the country, who were driven away towards South by the Aryans at a later stage. Languages of this
family are concentrated over the northern states including Gujarat and Maharashtra. In terms of
the number of speakers, Hindi occupies fourth place in the world.
It consists of several dialects; Khadi Boli is one of them. Urdu is very akin to Hindi and is widely
spoken in this belt. Other languages of this group are Punjabi, and Gujarati concentrated in the
states of Punjab and Gujarat, respectively.
Kachchi and Sindhi, belong to this family; they are spoken in Gujarat and Rajasthan. The
concentration of Marathi is in Maharashtra. Oriya, Bengali and Assamese are languages of the
eastern group and are spoken in eastern India, mainly in Orissa, West Bengal and Assam
respectively. Kashmiri, Kohistani, Shina and Dardi are spoken in different parts of Jammu and
Kashmir.
The Dravidian family of languages consists of a number of groups such as (i) South-Dravidian, (ii)
Central-Dravidian and (iii) North Dravidian. The major languages such as Tamil, Malayaiam,
Kannada, as well as the minor languages or dialects such as Tulu, Kurgi and Yerukala are included in
the South- Dravidian group. Central Dravidian group mainly consists of Telugu and probably Gondi.
The Northern Dravidian group consist of Kurukh (Oraon) and Malto.
It is noted that the Dravidian languages are less diverse than the other languages families of India.
The major language groups like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayaiam themselves account for 96
per cent of the total population of the Dravidian speakers.
(3) Austric Languages:
The Austric languages of India belong to the Austro-Asiatic sub-family. This sub-family is further
divided into two main branches; (a) Munda and (b) Mon-Khmer. The Mon-Khmer branch consists
of the two groups: Khasi and Nicobari. The Munda branch—the largest of the Austric-consists of 14
12
tribal language groups. More than 6.2 million people speak the Austro-Asiatic languages mainly the
tribal population. Santhal language is the most widely spoken by more than 50 per cent people.
(4) Sino -Tibetan Languages:
The Sino-Tibetan languages are spoken by a variety of people. Depending upon their region and
settlement, they are put into several groups and sub-groups. The three main branches are (i) Tibeto-
Himalayan (ii) North-Assam and (iii) Assam-Myanmari (Burmese). The Tibeto-Himalayan branch
consists of the following: (a) Bhutia group; and (b) Himalayan group.
The Bhutia group includes Tibetan, Balti, Ladakhi, Lahuli, Sherpa and Sikkim Bhutia. The Himalayan
group consists of Chamba, Kanauri and Lepcha. Ladakhi has largest number of speakers followed by
Sikkim, Bhutia and the Tibetan. In the Himalayan group the speakers of Kanauri have the highest
numerical strength. The North-Assam or Arunachal branch includes the following six speeches: (i)
Aka (ii) Dafla (iii) Abor (iv) Miri (v) Mishmi and (vi) Mishing. In this group the Miris have the largest
number of speakers.
The Assam-Myanmari (Burmese) branch of the Sino-Tibetan family is divided into the following
groins, (i) Bodo or Bero, (ii) Naga (iii) Kachin (iv) Kukichin and (v) Myanmar (Burma) group. There
are several speeches in each of these groups. Among them the Naga group displays the highest
degree of density there are as many as six speeches having a total strength varying between 1 and
7 lakhs. Manipuri has the largest number of speakers.
Geographical Distribution of Languages:
The languages (speeches) of the Austric family are spoken by the tribal group in the Khasi and Jaintia
hills of Meghalaya and the Nicobar islands, the predominantly tribal districts of Santhal Parganas,
Ranchi, Mayurbhanj etc. Of the two speeches of Non-Khamer, Khasi is confined to the Khasi and
Jaintia Hills, while Nicobari to the Nicobar Islands.
The Sino-Tibetan’s languages and the dialects are spoken by the tribal groups of North-East and of
the Himalayan and Sub-Himalayan region of the North and North West. Ladakh, parts of Himachal
Pradesh and Sikkim are its main area. Among the Assam Myanmari groups Naga dialects are spoken
in Nagaland, Lushai is concentrated in Mizo hills, Garo in Garo hills and Metei in Manipur.
The plateau and the adjoining coastal region are inhabited by the people speaking Dravidian
language. Telegu is spoken in Andhra Pradesh; Tamil in Tamil Nadu, Kannada in Karnataka and
Malayaiam in Kerala. The tribal people like Gonds of Madhya Pradesh and Central India and the
Oraons of Chotanagpur plateau also speaks some of Dravidian language.
The plains of India have languages of the Indo-Aryan family. The people living as far as south as the
Konkan coast speak the Indo-Aryan language. Hindi is spoken in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh,
Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and the Union Territory of Delhi. Urdu is closely akin
to Hindi and is widely distributed in this belt.
13
A major concentration of those people who declare Urdu as their mother tongue is found in U.P.
Bihar, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka. Kachchi and Sindhi are mainly concentrated in
Western India.
Marathi the most important language of Southern group is spoken in Maharashtra. The languages
of the Eastern group such as Oriya, Bengali and Assamese are spoken in Orissa, West Bengal and
Assam respectively. The language of the Central group like Punjabi and Gujarati are confined to
Punjab and Gujarat respectively. The speakers of the various forms of Pahari and the Nepali inhabit
the Himalayan and sub Himalaya’s area of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
As the states of India are language-based, the Scheduled languages are spoken by majority of the
population in respective states. In Kerala, for instance, 96 per cent of the population speaks
Malayalam, and in Andhra Pradesh more than 85 per cent of the people speak Telugu. Thus, every
Scheduled language has its specific region and core of these exists in specific state.
The boundary of a linguistic region is, however, not a demarcated line but a transitional zone over
which one language gradually loses its dominance and gives way to another. There is an
intermingling of languages among the various linguistic groups. People are often bilingual or tri-
lingual in several areas. Further, in many states, the major language of one of the adjacent states is
the second most important language spoken by the second largest group of people in the state.
14
15
16
1. Plurality of Religions:
Indian society is multi-religious. While the state is secular, the people of India belong to different
religions. Apart from the tribal societies, many of whom still live in the pre-religious state of
animism and magic, the Indian population consists of the Hindus (82.41%), Muslims (11.6%),
Christians (2.32%), Sikhs (1.99%), Buddhists (0.77%) and Jains (0.41%).
The Hindus themselves are divided into several sects; in fact, Jainism, Sikhism, and Buddhism are
GUIDANCE I AS
all offshoots of the same root. Hinduism is also said to have incorporated many practices and
beliefs of the local communities. J.H. Hutton was of the view that the “tribal religions…represent,
as it were, surplus material not yet built into the temple of Hinduism”. This explains the nature of
Hinduism, which is polytheistic, having several million gods and goddesses. Many local cults and
parochial practices have been amalgamated and become part of the great tradition of Hinduism.
Similarly, many of the universal traits and practices of Hinduism got localized, or have got differently
interpreted in different regions. Mckim Marriott called these interactions between the Great
Tradition and the several little traditions in the indigenous civilization of India as processes of
‘universalization’ and ‘parochialization’.
Practitioners of Hinduism are mainly divided between the Vaishnavs (worshippers of Vishnu),
Shaivaites (worshippers of Shiva), Shaktas (worshipper of the mother goddess, Shakti), and Smartas
(worshippers of all the three – Vishnu, Shiva, and Shakti). There are subdivisions in each of them.
Similarly, there are several movements that are mistaken as separate religions such as Lingayat,
Kabirpanth, Radhaswamy, Swami Narayani, Arya Samaj, and Brahmo Samaj. In that sense, Hinduism
is not a monolithic whole. It allows its adherents to follow whatever path they choose to follow for
worship.
It is this catholicity that makes Hinduism not a religion in the sense in which it is used for other
religions. It is a way of life, and allows for diversity. Although Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism are
counted as separate religions, they originated as protest movements against the caste system of
the Hindus. But these religions have not been able to eliminate casteism. For example, the lower
castes among the Sikhs are called Majhabis, and in their villages, they are never addressed as
‘Sardar’.
However, no untouchability is observed in gurudwaras. Research has shown that occupational

castes still maintain their separate identity among the Sikhs and marriages generally take place
along caste lines. The same is true among the Jains, who are not only divided into different sects
such as Digambars (without clothes) and Shwetambars (with white robes), and into subsects such
as Barahpanthi and Terahpanthi, but also into different castes. It is also interesting to note that the
Jains have Brahman priests in their temples.
The Brahman priests also conduct marriages among them. Similarly, wholesale conversion of castes
into Buddhism has meant only change of religion without loss of caste identity. Even the converts
continue to self-define themselves as Dalits.
17
come up such as Radhaswami, Saibaba etc. Similarly, Islam is divided into Shiya and Sunni; Sikhism
into Namdhari and Nirankari; Jainism into Digambar and Shwetambar and Buddhism into Hinayan
and Mahayan.
While Hindus and Muslims are found in almost all parts of India, the remaining minority religions
have their pockets of concentration. Christians have their strongholds in the three Southern States
of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Meghalaya. Sikhs are concentrated largely in Punjab, Buddhist in
Maharashtra and Jains are mainly spread over Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat, but also found
in most urban centres throughout the country.
5. Caste Diversity:
India is a country of castes. Caste or Jati refers to a hereditary, endogamous status group practicing
a specific traditional occupation. It is surprising to know that there are more than 3,000 Jatis in
India.
These are hierarchically graded in different ways in different regions.
It may also be noted that the practice of caste system is not confined to Hindus alone. We find
castes among the Muslims, Christians, Sikhs as well as other communities. We have heard of the
hierarchy of Shaikh, Saiyed, Mughal, Pathan among the Muslims, Furthermore, there are castes like
Teli (oil pressure). Dhobi (washerman), Darjee (tailor) etc. among the Muslims. Similarly, caste
consciousness among the Christians in India is not unknown. Since a vast majority of Christians in
India were converted from Hindu fold, the converts have carried the caste system into Christianity.
Among the Sikhs again we have so many castes including Jat Sikh and Majahabi Sikh (lower castes).
In view of this we can well imagine the extent of caste diversity in India.
In addition to the above described major forms of diversity, we have diversity of many other sorts
like settlement pattern – tribal, rural, urban; marriage and kinship pattern along religious and
regional lines and so on.
III. Religious minorities:

IV. Major tribes, tribal areas and their problems:
V. Cultural regions:
Social Cultural Regions (SCR):
SCR it is easier to understand the people, agriculture, traditions Seasons, and buying selling periods.
You can also plot them to your needs, say cooking medium: some SCR’s are mustard oil users and
some may be groundnut oil users. You can also map hard and soft water. A social planner will have
several maps. Maps by food and crop, map by religion, map by monsoon.
Socio-cultural regions helps you understand the soul of the place. Often references like “paan
belt” or “cow belt” may not sound politically right but they carry a lot of weight. Why Eastern UP is
similar to north Bihar? When merging Bhojpur enters Chapra – Siwaan in Bihar and finally converges
into Mithila the similarities are bound to happen. Mithila enters into Dwaar- Bang it converges
into Bengal. Similarities in language ,food, dress , makeup and structures of house are seen.
Cultural Zone of India
The Cultural Zones of India are seven overlapping zones defined by the Ministry of Culture of
the Government of India to promote and preserve the cultural heritage of various regions of
India. Each of these zones has been provided with a zonal center. Most zonal centers were announced
20
by the then-Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, in 1985 and formally began functioning in the
1986-87 period. Their stated goal is “to strengthen the ancient roots of Indian culture and evolve and
enrich composite national culture”.
Capital of the British India and the West Bengal’s capital the city of joy Kolkata is also known as
the Cultural Capital of India.
Each zone has a zonal headquarters where a zonal cultural center has been
established. Several states have membership in multiple zones, but no state subdivisions are
utilized in the zonal divisions. In addition to promoting the culture of the zones they are responsible
for, each zonal center also works to cross-promote and create exposure to other cultural zones of
India by organizing functions and inviting artistes from other zones.
GUIDANCE IAS
21
HEALTH INDICATORS OF INDIA:
1
INFANT AND CHILD MORTALITY
BIO-DEMOGRAPHIC RISK FACTORS:
Researchers have identified multiple risk factors for infant and child mortality based on the
characteristics of the mother and child and the circumstances of the birth. Figure 7.3 illustrate the
relationship between these risk factors and neonatal, infant, and under-five mortality.
 Boys are slightly more likely to die before their fifth birthday than girls. The gender gap is most
pronounced in the neonatal period (within one month after birth).
 Shorter birth intervals are associated with higher under-five mortality. The under-five mortality
rate for children born less than 2 years after the preceding birth is more than twice as high as
that for children born 3 years after their preceding sibling.
2
 Children reported to be very small are 4-1/2 times as likely to die during the first month of life
as children reported to be average size or larger (108 deaths per 1,000 live births versus 24
deaths per 1,000 live births).
PATTERNS BY BACKGROUND CHARACTERISTICS:
1. The under-five mortality rate is higher in rural areas than in urban areas (56 deaths per 1,000
live births versus 34 deaths per 1,000 live births).
2. The under-five mortality rate is highest in Uttar Pradesh (78 deaths per 1,000 live births) and
lowest in Kerala (7 deaths per 1,000 live births)
3. The under-five mortality rate declines with an increase in mother are schooling.
4. The under-five mortality rate for scheduled castes (56 deaths per 1,000 live births), scheduled
tribes (57 deaths per 1,000 live births), and other backward classes (51 deaths per 1,000 live
births) are considerably higher than for those who are not from scheduled castes, scheduled
tribes, or other backward classes (39 deaths per 1,000 live births).
5. The under-five mortality rate also declines with increasing household wealth. The under-five
mortality rate declined from 72 deaths per 1,000 live births in the lowest wealth quintile to 23
deaths per 1,000 live births in the highest wealth quintile.
1. PERINATAL MORTALITY:
Perinatal deaths comprise stillbirths (pregnancy loss that occurs after seven months of gestation)
and early neonatal deaths (deaths of live births within the first seven days of life). The perinatal
mortality rate is calculated as the number of perinatal deaths per 1,000 pregnancies of seven or
more months’ duration.
Sample: Number of pregnancies of seven or more months’ duration to women age 15-49 in the five
years before the survey.
Patterns by background characteristics
 The perinatal mortality rate is higher in rural areas than in urban areas (40 deaths per 1,000
pregnancies versus 26 deaths per 1,000 pregnancies).
 The perinatal mortality rate is highest in Uttar Pradesh (56 deaths per 1,000 pregnancies) and
lowest in Kerala (8 deaths per 1,000 pregnancies).
 The perinatal mortality rate is twice as high among pregnancies to women in which the previous
pregnancy interval was less than 15 months (56 deaths per 1,000 pregnancies) than those with
an interval of 27 or more months.
 The perinatal mortality rate declines with an increase in the mother’s schooling.
 The perinatal mortality rate also declines with higher household wealth. The perinatal mortality
rate is 48 deaths per 1,000 pregnancies in the lowest wealth quintiles and 21 deaths per 1,000
pregnancies in the highest wealth quintile.
3
4
5
6
2. MATERNAL MORTALITY:
Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR):
Refers to the number of women who die as a result of complications of pregnancy or childbearing in
a given year per 100,000 live births in that year.
NOTE: Main pattern of MMR in India is similar to the case of IMR and CMR as the levels of socio- economic
development vary across in India.
7
8
3. VACCINATION OF CHILDREN:
In India, 62 percent of children age 12-23 months received all basic vaccinations at any time before
the survey, and 54 percent received all basic vaccinations by age 12 months
Patterns by background characteristics
 Children age 12-23 months of first birth order are much more likely to receive all basic
vaccinations than children of birth order 6 or more (67% versus 43%)
 Vaccination coverage increase with increasing mother’s schooling. 70% of children aged
between 12-23 months whose mothers have 12 or more years of schooling have received all
basic vaccinations, compared with 52 percent of children whose mothers have no schooling
9
 Sikh children are more likely to have received all basic vaccinations than Muslim or Buddhist/
Neo-Buddhist children (89% versus 55-56%).
 Vaccination coverage increases with increasing wealth status; 70 percent of children age 12- 23
months from households in the highest wealth quintile received all basic vaccinations, compared
with 53 percent of children from households in the lowest wealth quintile.
 Coverage of all basic vaccinations varies considerably by state and union territory. The coverage
is highest in Pondicherry, Punjab, Lakshadweep, and Goa (88-91%) and lowest in Nagaland
(35%) and Arunachal Pradesh (38%).
 Vaccination cards are a critical tool in ensuring that a child receives all recommended
vaccinations on schedule. All mothers were not able to produce a vaccination card for their
child at the time of the interview; vaccination cards were available for only 63 percent of child
are from 12 to 23 months.
NUTRITION AND ANAEMIA :
4. Nutritional status of children:

Thirty-eight percent of children under age five years are stunted (short for their age); 21 percent
are wasted (thin for their height); 36 percent are underweight (thin for their age); and 2 percent
are overweight (heavy for their height). Children born to mothers with no schooling and children
in the lowest wealth quintile are most likely to be undernourished.
5. Initial breastfeeding:
About two-fifths (42%) of children born in the last 5 years were breastfed within 1 hour of
birth, as recommended. Timely initiation of breastfeeding is particularly low for women with
no schooling, for home deliveries, and for births delivered by a diagram.
10
Nutritional Status among Young Children:
11
12
Patterns by background characteristics:
 The prevalence of under nutrition is almost the same among girls and boys (Table 10.1).
 The prevalence of stunting increases with a child’s age through 18-23 months and decreases
slightly thereafter.
 Over half (53%) of children who were reported to be very small at birth are stunted, compared
with 37 percent of children who were of average size or larger.
 Children born to thin mothers (BMI less than 18.5 kg/m2) are more likely to be stunted, wasted,
and underweight than children born to mothers with a normal BMI or children whose mothers
are overweight/obese.
 Stunting is higher among children in rural areas (41%) than urban areas (31%).
 Fifty-one percent of children born to mothers with no schooling are stunted, compared with 24
percent of children born to mothers with 12 or more years of schooling. The corresponding
proportions of underweight children are 47 and 22 percent, respectively.
 The prevalence of stunting decreases steadily with an increase in wealth quintiles, from 51
percent of children in households in the lowest wealth quintile to 22 percent of children in
households in the highest wealth quintile.
 The prevalence of stunting in children under age five is the highest in Bihar (48%), Uttar Pradesh
(46%), Jharkhand (45%), and Meghalaya (44%), and lowest in Kerala and Goa (20% each).
Jharkhand has the highest levels of underweight (48%) and wasting (29%) (Figure 10.2).
13
INITIATION OF BREASTFEEDING:
95 percent of children born in the two years before the survey were breastfed at some time. There
are no major differences by background characteristics. More than two-fifths (42%) of last-born
children in the two years before the survey who ever breastfed were breastfed within one hour of
birth, and over four-fifths (81%) of children began breastfeeding within one day of birth. Twenty-
one percent of children received a Prelacteal feed.
Early breastfeeding practices by background characteristics:
 Children whose delivery was assisted by health personnel (43%) or who were born at a health
facility (43%) were more likely to start breastfeeding within one hour of birth than other
children.
 The percentage of children that are breastfed within one hour of birth is very low in Uttar
Pradesh (25%); the only states in which more than two-thirds of children are breastfed within
one hour of birth are Goa, Mizoram, Sikkim, and Odisha (Table 10.5).
14
 Prelacteal feeding ranges from a minimum of 3 percent of children in Tripura to a maximum of
42 percent of children in Uttar Pradesh
10.2.3 Median Duration of Breastfeeding:
The median duration of breastfeeding in India is 29.6 months. This means that half of children have
stopped breastfeeding by age about 30 months. The median duration of exclusive breastfeeding is
2.9 months, and the median duration of predominant breastfeeding (the period in which an infant
receives only water or other non-milk liquids in addition to breast milk) is 5.8 months.
Trends: The median duration of exclusive breastfeeding increased from 2.0 months in 2005-06 to 2.9
months in 2015-16.The median duration of any breastfeeding has also increased, from 24.4 months
to 29.6 months.
 On average, children in rural areas are breastfed longer (median duration of 33.0 months) than
their counterparts in urban areas (median duration of 24.4 months).
 On average, children of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe mothers are breastfed longer
(median duration of more than 33 months) than the children whose mothers belong to other
backward classes (median duration of 27.5 months) and children not from scheduled castes,
scheduled tribes or other backward classes (median duration of 28.1 months).
 The median duration of breastfeeding is 36.0 months or longer in eight states (mostly in the
East and Northeast) and is shortest in Tamil Nadu (17.4 months).
15
Trends: Between 2005-06 and 2015-16, the prevalence of anaemia among children age 6-59 months
declined from 70 percent to 59 percent, but continued to be higher among rural children (Figure
10.5).
 Anaemia is more prevalent among children under age 24 months than among older children,
with a peak prevalence of 71 percent observed among children age 12-17 months.
 Anaemia prevalence increases with increasing birth order of children and is higher among the
children of anaemic mothers than non-anaemic mothers.
 The prevalence of anaemia declines as the mother’s schooling and household wealth increases.
 The prevalence of anaemia among children age 6-59 months is highest among children in
Haryana (72%), followed by Jharkhand (70%) and Madhya Pradesh (69%). Several union
territories have even higher prevalence of anaemia (Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu, and
Chandigarh). The states with the lowest prevalence of anaemia among children are Mizoram
(19%), Manipur (24%), and Nagaland (26%).
16
MICRONUTRIENT INTAKE AND SUPPLEMENTATION AMONG CHILDREN:
Micronutrient deficiency is a major contributor to childhood morbidity and mortality. Micronutrients

are available in foods and can also be provided through direct supplementation. Breastfeeding
children benefit from supplements given to the mother.
The information collected on food consumption among the youngest children under age two years
is useful in assessing the extent to which children are consuming foods rich in two key
micronutrients—vitamin A and iron—in their daily diet. Iron deficiency is one of the primary causes
of anaemia, which has serious health consequences for both women and children. Vitamin A is an
essential micronutrient for the immune system and plays an important role in maintaining the
epithelial tissue in the body. Severe vitamin A deficiency (VAD) can cause eye damage and is the
leading cause of childhood blindness. VAD also increases the severity of infections such as measles
and diarrhoeal disease in children and slows recovery from illness. VAD is common in dry
environments where fresh fruits and vegetables are not readily available.
Forty-four percent of children age 6-23 months consumed foods rich in vitamin A in the day or night
before the interview, and 18 percent consumed iron-rich foods. The intake of both vitamin A-rich
and iron-rich foods increases as children are weaned.
Among children age 6-59 months, 26 percent were given iron supplements in the seven days prior to
survey. In the six months before the survey, 60 percent of children age 6-59 months was given
vitamin A supplements and 31 percent were given deworming medication. Ninety-three percent of
children age 6-59 months is in households using iodized salt.
The percentage of children age 6-59 months given Vitamin A supplements in the last six months
ranges from 29 percent in Nagaland and 31 percent in Manipur to 89 percent in Goa.
17
 The patterns of nutritional status by background characteristics among men are similar to those
among women.
 The proportion of thin men decreases with age, from 45 percent of men age 15-19 to 13 percent
of men age 40-49, whereas the proportion of overweight or obese men increases from 5 percent
of men age 15-19 to 28 percent of men age 40-49.
 The proportion of thin men is higher in rural areas (23%) than in urban areas (16%), whereas 27
percent of men are overweight or obese in urban areas, compared with 14 percent in rural
areas.
18
 There is steady decrease in the proportion of thin men with increasing household wealth
(from 32% in the lowest wealth quintile to 11% in the highest wealth quintile), and a steady
increase in the proportion of overweight or obese men (from 5% in the lowest wealth quintile
to 33% in the highest wealth quintile).
 The proportion of thin men is highest in Madhya Pradesh (28%), followed by Uttar Pradesh and
Bihar (26% each). The highest proportion of overweight or obese men is observed in Sikkim
(35%), several southern states (34% in Andhra Pradesh, 28% in Tamil Nadu, and 29% in Kerala)
and most of the union territories (Table 10.20.2).
10.7 ANAEMIA PREVALENCE IN ADULTS:
Fifty-three percent of women and 23 percent of men age 15-49 in India are anaemic (Table 10.21.1
and Table 10.21.2). Forty percent of women are mildly anaemic, 12 percent are moderately anaemic,
and 1 percent is severely anaemic. Twelve percent of men are classified as mildly anaemic, 10
percent as moderately anaemic, and 1 percent as severely anaemic.
Trends: Anaemia prevalence has barely changed in the 10 years between NFHS-3 and NFHS-4,
decreasing from 55 percent in 2005-06 to 53 percent in 2015-16 among women and from 24 percent
in 2005-06 to 23 percent in 2015-16 among men.
19
 The overall prevalence of anaemia is consistently high, at more than 50 percent, in almost all of
the subgroups of women. For men, the prevalence is above 20 percent in most of the subgroups.
 Anaemia varies by maternity status—58 percent of women who are breastfeeding are anaemic,
compared with 50 percent of women who are pregnant and 52 percent of women who are
neither pregnant nor breastfeeding.
 The prevalence of anaemia decreases with schooling, from 56 percent among women with no
schooling to 49 percent among women with 12 or more years of schooling. Across the same
schooling groups, the prevalence of anaemia among men decreases from 29 percent to 18
percent.
 The proportion of anaemic women and men declines steadily as the wealth of the household
increases (from 59% in the lowest wealth quintile to 48% in the highest wealth quintile among
women and from 32% in the lowest wealth quintile to 17% in the highest wealth quintile
among men).
 Women in urban areas are slightly less likely to be anaemic (51%) than those in rural areas
(54%). The difference is larger for the prevalence of anaemia in men (25% in rural areas versus
19% in urban areas).
The prevalence of anaemia among women is more than 60 percent or more in Jharkhand, Haryana,
West Bengal, Bihar, and Andhra Pradesh, and the prevalence is less than one-third in Mizoram
(25%), Manipur (26%), Nagaland (28%), and Goa (31%). The prevalence of anaemia is also very high
in the union territories of Dadra & Nagar Haveli (80%), Chandigarh (76%), and the Andaman &
Nicobar Islands (66%). The state wise distribution pattern of anaemia prevalence in men is similar
to that in women, except that the prevalence among men in Haryana and Chandigarh is slightly
below the national average whereas it is well above the national average in the case of women.
10.8 FOOD CONSUMPTION OF WOMEN AND MEN:
The consumption of a wide variety of nutritious foods is important for women’s and men’s health.
A well-balanced diet is required for adequate amounts of protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, and
minerals. The 2015-16 NFHS asked women and men how often they consume various types of food
(daily, weekly, occasionally, or never).
Among these food groups, women consume dark green, leafy vegetables most often. Almost half
(47%) of women consume dark green, leafy vegetables daily and an additional 38 percent consume
them weekly. Almost half (45%) of women consume pulses or beans daily and an equal percentage
of women consume them weekly. Milk or curd is consumed daily by 45 percent of women and
weekly by 23 percent of women, but 7 percent never consume milk or curd and 25 percent consume
milk or curd only occasionally. Consumption of fruits is less common. Fifty-four percent of women
do not consume fruits even once a week. Very few women consume chicken, meat, fish, or eggs on
a daily basis, although about one-third of women consume these types of food weekly. Ten percent
of women consume fried foods daily and 36 percent weekly. Aerated drinks are consumed daily by
5 percent of women and weekly by 20 percent of women.
The pattern of food consumption by men is similar to that of women, but men are slightly more
likely than women to consume milk or curd regularly, as well as fruits. Men are less likely than
women to completely abstain from eating chicken, meat, fish, and eggs. Overall, 30 percent of
women and 22 percent of men are vegetarians according to this measure.
20
Trends: The pattern of daily food consumption has remained more or less the same since 2005-06
except there has been a decrease in the daily consumption of dark green, leafy vegetables among
both women and men, and an increase in the daily consumption of milk or curd.
 Deficiencies in the diet of both women and men are observed among those with little or no
schooling, those in rural areas, those in poorer households, and those belonging to scheduled
tribes and scheduled castes. The most prominent deficiency in their diet is in fruits and milk or
curd.
 The regular consumption of pulses and beans, as well as dark green, leafy vegetables, is common
in every state but less in Kerala, Kerala consume more of animal protiens.
 At least three-quarters of women eat dark green, leafy vegetables at least once a week in
every state except Rajasthan (61%), Kerala (63%), and Uttar Pradesh (73%). The consumption of
dark green, leafy vegetables among women at least once a week is also relatively low in the
union territories of Lakshadweep (52%) and Daman & Diu (67%).
The consumption of other types of food at least once a week among women varies widely across the
states, particularly milk or curd (from 24% in Mizoramand 30% in Odisha to 91% in Haryana, 93% in
Karnataka, and 96% in Sikkim) and fruits (from 19% in Odisha to 83% in Kerala).
21
POPULATION POLICIES
GOVERNMENTS AROUND THE WORLD have expressed an interest in (and oftentimes need for)
controlling the size, distribution, and composition of their populations. Some governments may
approach population policy from the need of reducing fertility levels, while others will wish to
increase fertility levels. Other countries attempt to control the quantity and quality of immigrants
entering the country, or control the ‘‘quality’’ of immigrants by legislating selective immigration
policies. Most developed countries already employ various population policies, albeit in various
forms and to various degrees of success. For governments that wish to control populations through
policy,1 policy levers can be used to target death rates, fertility rates, internal migration, and
immigration. A ûfth dimension — economic policies — may also have implications for
populationstructureandsize.Immigration,internalmigration,andfertilitypolicies offer the most direct
policy levers for governments to pursue population policy. Rather than death policies, governments
focus instead on health and health care provision and healthy aging, with the intent of enabling
older individuals to lead more active and productive lives for a longer period of time before requiring
care or institutionalization. As a general rule, life expectancies in the developed world have
increased over the decades, reûecting these policies.
IMMIGRATION POLICY
Immigration can produce signiûcant long-term population growth even in countries where fertility
rates are equal to or have dropped below replacement level.
In the United States, approximately60percent of the nation’s population growth is due to natural
increase (the difference between births and deaths), while immigration accounts for the remaining
40 percent. However, immigration plays a much larger role in population growth when the children
of immigrants are accounted for, particularly in the United States, where the large Hispanic immigrant
population tends to have fertility rates signiûcantly higher than native-born Americans. Indeed,
projections indicate that immigrants and their children will account for 87 percent of the nation’s
population growth between 2005 and 2050, changing the ethnic and racial composition of the country
In Canada, immigration already accounts for over 50 percent of the nation’s population growth, and
it is predicted to be the sole source of population growth by mid-century. However, immigrant
fertility rates in Canada are more or less equivalent to those of the broader population as compared
to the United States, meaning that Canada (and other developed countries that receive large numbers
of immigrants) does not reap as much of a second generation as the United States does.
Given that fertility levels in the developed world are expected to remain low, and that there is also
relatively little change expected in terms of mortality rates, immigration becomes the central
component of population change, and immigration policy is the de facto population policy in Canada,
the United States, and many other developed countries. Of the potential policy options, immigration
policy provides an almost immediate and direct impact on a population through such actions as
deûning the number of immigrants allowed entrance in any given year, the source countries for
immigrants, and immigrants’ qualiûcations.
1
In particular, immigration has a large impact on the size of the working labor force, an important fact
for economists and demographers alike as they look to who will pay for social-welfare programs in
the future as the working population declines. In the United States, immigration, and high fertility
levels amongst immigrants, is a signiûcant contributor of population growth. Canada has also used
immigration to directly increase its population, with immigration accounting for approximately 70
percent of labor force growth. Canadian policy has targeted ‘‘economic’’ or ‘‘skilled’’ immigrants
over the past decades, who bring with them speciûc tools needed within the Canadian economy. In
Europe, the region has not been seen in the past as a major destination for immigrants (although
short-term work programs are the exception), and current immigration numbers are insufûcient to
reverse population decline, while further increases in immigration levels may result in ethnic
confrontation.
Governments choosing to increase immigration levels do so with greater risk, and several countries,
including France and Germany, have witnessed anti-immigrant demonstrations in recent years.
Most European countries have imposed strict immigration policies, and some have actively
encouraged their foreign-born populations to leave also.
Although immigration can be used to support a nation’s demographic and economic growth, it can
be a very poor tool for deûning population policy. Newly elected governments may, for example,
change immigration targets in response to various needs, whether these are a tightening of
immigration ûows in response to economic downturns or concern over national security issues,
such as those visible as a result of the terrorist attacks in New York City in September 2001. Likewise,
despite targeted numbers, the actual number of immigrants entering a country in a given year may
exceed (or miss) the targeted number, while illegal immigration provides another route into a
country.
INTERNAL MIGRATION
In most countries in the developed world, internal population mobility is unconstrained. Indeed,
the United States, Australia, Canada, and other countries are liberal democracies that permit and
often encourage the free movement of their populations, with individuals free to migrate in search
of economic advantage or other personal choices and settle in the location of their choice. The
exceptions have included the forced relocation of First Nations groups onto non-traditional reserves
as the country expanded and European settlers expropriated the land for their own use or the
relocation of communities faced with natural disaster. In some developing countries, however,
internal migration is either enforced or restricted through government policies. Indonesia’s
transmigration policy, for example, was a long-standing government program that relocated
Indonesians from the island of Java to less populated areas by offering economic and land incentives.
But the forced relocation also sparked violent confrontations between Christians and Muslims in
2000 and 2001, two groups that had long-term settlement patterns that were largely exclusive of
each other but that were forced together through government relocation policies.9 On the other
hand, China followed a path that could be described as restrained urbanization. Fearing an inûux of
rural peasants to its largest cities, China vigorously attempted to control internal migration through
the Hukou system, which conferred ‘‘citizenship’’ to the locality of the mother. Citizenship conferred
speciûc local beneûts—access to health care, free public education, legal housing, and better access
to jobs—that noncitizens were not eligible for. Under the system, individuals were broadly
categorized as rural or urban workers. A worker seeking to move from the country to urban areas to
take up non-agricultural work would have to apply through the relevant bureaucracies, and the
number of workers allowed to migrate was tightly controlled.
2
FERTILITY POLICIES
Fertility Reduction: Antinatal Policies:
As we have already seen, fertility levels vary dramatically across the globe, ranging from very low
fertility in much of the developed world and in particular Europe to very high fertility in portions of
the developing world, including sub Saharan Africa. While these differences partially reûect a
developed world/developing world divide, this is only part of the picture. Many countries in the
developing world already have comparatively low fertility rates. While China’s low fertility rate
(1.6) has been artiûcially engineered through state control, fertility rates in other countries, such as
South Korea or Taiwan, have declined largely on their own and beyond the scope of government
intervention.
In countries where governments deem fertility too high, such as India, programs encourage lower
fertility rates through family-planning programs that educate men and women on the beneûts of
smaller families and increase accessibility to and use of contraceptive devices. More stringent
fertility programs, including China’s one-child policy, have also been implemented in order to reduce
fertility.
Although reductions in fertility have occurred, many governments, including Saudi Arabia, India, Sri
Lanka, Pakistan, Niger, and Peru, still view their population growth rate as being too high. There has
been growing recognition since the 1980s of the need to control population growth within developing
countries, despite the complexity of trying to do so. In response, programs to reduce population
growth rates by controlling fertility behaviour have been enacted, ranging from laissez- faire to
invasive. In the former case, India had initially hoped that generally improving economic prospects
would ultimately lead to lower fertility levels, although changes to fertility behavior were not
noted. Economic incentives to reduce the number of children or emphasize quality-of-life aspects
associated with fewer children have also been promoted, but with limited effect.
More coercive and invasive programs have included sterilization. With mounting frustration over
the failure of family-planning programs and economic development policies to bring about a decline
in fertility, the Indian government instituted an enforced sterilization program in 1976. Ofûcially,
there was no coercion to participate in the program, but the fact that government employees needed
to produce two candidates for sterilization, wide-scale bribery, and a series of disincentives, including
the denial of licenses, essentially meant that sterilization was indeed forced upon the population.
Although some twenty-two million individuals were sterilized, most were older males who had
either promote fertility directly or ease the opportunity costs of children, with the hope that fertility
rates will increase. Faced with slowing or declining population growth rates since the 1970s, Eastern
European countries have the longest history of pronatalist policies.15 Policies typically addressed
the issue through a combination of ûnancial incentives and restriction to contraception and abortion
services. Meant to ease the opportunity costs of children, ûnancial beneûts commonly include paid
maternity and paternity leave, free or reduced-cost childcare, and tax breaks for large families etc.
ECONOMIC POLICY AS POPULATION POLICIES
National or regional economic policies often have a population component or impact on population
policies along with population structure. In the United States, policymakers and business leaders
are concerned with the slowing growth of the labor force, with growth slowing from 2.6 percent
growth per year during the 1970s to 1.7 percent per year in the 1980s, to 1.1 percent in the 1990s.
Over the coming decades, growth in the labor force is projected to be just 0.6 percent. Additionally,
there are concerns that labor productivity will drop as more experienced workers are replaced by
people with fewer years on the job.
3
Fearful of aging populations, declining labor force size and experience, and the support of their
older populations, many governments in the developed world have moved to adjust labor force
participation rates. For instance, governments have abolished mandatory retirement ages, have
reduced or delayed retirement beneûts, and/or now actively encourage labor force participation
amongst the old. For instance, with the delay of Social Security beneûts to age sixty-seven (from
sixty-ûve) and the abolishment of mandatory retirement in the United States, labor force participation
for those over ûfty-ûve has increased since 1995. Other countries have enacted similar legislation
and observed similar results. The hope is that the older population—individuals that society has
typically deûned as ‘‘retired’’—will remain active in the labor force and largely self- supportive,
while also paying into tax and pension funds.
Other programs, including those that promote gender equity or reading and literacy amongst women
are also closely associated with changing fertility preferences, with increased educational
opportunities for women linked to lower fertility. Clearly, health care provision is also an economic
policy. In general, countries that have invested in health and family planning have slower population
growth rates and greater economic development than those countries that have not made such
investments.
China’s One Child Policy

The one-child policy was imposed in 1979 and was carried out with increasing coercion in urban and
rural areas. The stated policy was (and, generally speaking, remained) that after one child, a woman
was required to have an intrauterine device (IUD) inserted; if the couple already had two children,
the woman (or, infrequently, the man) was required to be sterilized; and all pregnancies that had
not received prior official approval were to be aborted.
Coercive mass campaigns became widespread in the early 1980s and recorded their worst abuses in
1983. Statistics on birth control operations showed a sharp peak in sterilizations (1982: 5 million;
1983: 21 million), abortions (1981: 8.7 million; 1982: 12.4 million; 1983: 14.4 million), and IUD insertions
(1981: 10.3 million; 1982: 14.1 million; 1983: 17.8 million) that year.
The one-child policy, from its inception, has also included disincentives for births beyond the
approved number. Disincentives vary by place and can include severe fines, appropriation or
destruction of family homes or possessions, political or physical harassment, work penalties or loss
of employment, and the required adoption of officially controllable and long-term birth control
techniques. The one-child policy has also always included incentives reserved for couples who
agree to stop childbearing after one child and who sign a one-child pledge. The incentives can take
the form of regular payments to the couple for the single child’s benefit, priority in access to health
services and public childcare and education, hiring priority in desired job categories for the parents
and single child, and political praise. However, penalties strongly overshadow incentives in the
enforcement of birth restrictions in China.
Compliance and Non-Compliance
At the time the one-child policy was adopted in 1978, the urban population of China had been living
with a strict two-child policy since the mid-1960s. Urban conditions such as overcrowding and the
greater autonomy of women encouraged voluntary low fertility. In addition, the urban social safety
net (allocated housing, free or inexpensive medical care, pensions, and subsidies) made families
less dependent on their children for old-age support than rural couples. Thus, the one-child policy,
aggressively implemented throughout urban China, was successful from its inception. A large
4
proportion of urban couples in childbearing ages sign the one-child pledge, even though China’s
urban couples, like their rural counterparts, usually say they would prefer two or more children if
this were an option. The urban total fertility rate (TFR) is only 1.4 births per woman or lower, well
below the replacement level.
Rural China has consistently resisted the one child policy, because there is essentially no social
support system for rural families to substitute for the support of children, and especially sons,
when they are grown. Daughters marry out of their villages, while sons continue to live with or near
their parents and each son bring in a wife who helps him support his parents in their old age.
Accordingly, preference for male progeny remained in the society. Given peasant resistance, the
government modified the one-child policy for rural China starting in 1984. In 18 provinces (more
than half the total), rural couples are allowed to bear a second child if the first-born is a girl, but no
such concession if the first born is a boy. Five provinces allow all rural couples to have two children
and the provinces with populations dominated by minority groups allow rural couples two or three
children. The four province-level municipalities and also Jiangsu and Sichuan provinces continue
the one-child limit for all urban and rural Han couples. China’s exact rural TFR is not known, but it is
estimated to be about 2.0 births per woman, slightly below the replacement level or lower.
Effects of the One-Child Policy
China’s one-child policy has held both urban and rural fertility down to levels well below what they
would otherwise have been during the decades since 1978. This has reduced China’s population
growth rate and, all else being equal, has increased per capita income. Such low fertility has also
reduced the number of pregnancies and births per woman, and thereby helped to reduce maternal
mortality. The one child policy has greatly changed family structure and raised the perceived value
of each child as the number of children per couple has declined. In cities, the one-child policy may
have helped elevate the status of daughters, because almost half the time an only child is a girl. But
elsewhere, the one-child policy or its modifications have exacerbated life-threatening discrimination
against female infants and very young girls, and brought about a worsening problem of sex-selective
abortion of female fetuses.
In addition, reproductive rights have been largely denied to China’s women who were forced to
bear the burden of required use of IUDs, frequent inspections to confirm that the IUD is still in place,
required abortions of noncompliant pregnancies, compulsory sterilization, and often, harm to their
marriages and family relations if they do not bear a son. Finally, the strong contraction of fertility
has distorted China’s age structure and set in motion a process of rapid and extreme population
aging.
China’s one-child policy is, therefore, partly beneficial and partly detrimental to the quality of life
of China’s people.
INDIA’S POPULATION POLICY

A positive population policy that aims at reducing the birth rate and ultimately stabilising the growth
rate of population. In India, where the majority of people are illiterate, fatalist, and custom-ridden,
and do not believe in family planning, only the government’s initiative can help in controlling the
population growth.
High growth rate of population has been one of the major problems facing India. India with only 2.4
per cent of the global geographical area sustains 102.7 crore population which is 16.7 per cent of the
5
world population, as on March 1, 2001. With the process of development 1951 onwards, the death
rate has declined below 8 per thousand whereas the birth rate continues to be around 25 per
thousand.
Consequently, the population growth rate remains at a very high level of about 2 per cent. The
addition of 18.1 crore persons to India’s population between 1991-2001 was more than the population
of Brazil, the fifth most populous country of the world.
This frightening growth rate of population has aggravated the problems of poverty, unemployment
and inequalities. There has been a gross neglect of social sectors like primary education, basic
health and social security. India’s resources are fast depleting due to rising demand. There has been
degradation of environment too.
Government Policy to Control Population Growth:
The population policy of the Government of India has passed through the following phases
1. Pre-Independence Period: Before independence, the British did not consider population growth
as a problem. Their attitude towards birth control was one of indifference because they never
wanted to interfere with the values, beliefs, customs and traditions of Indians. That is why this
phase is called the Period of Indifference.
However, the intelligentsia in India was aware of the problem of growing population and did
advocate birth control. Among them P.K. Wattal was the pioneer who wrote a book on Population
Problem in India in 1916, followed by R.D. Karve, Rabindranath Tagore, P.N. Sapru, Jawaharlal
Nehru and Bhore Committee among others who advocated birth control.
Gandhiji also favoured birth control but emphasised natural methods like self-control or
abstinence and safe-period intercourse instead of artificial methods of birth control. Thus,
Prof. Gunnar Myrdal wrote about this period: “During the last time of British colonialism, the
intelligentsia prepared the background thoughts related to birth control. The logical and
systematic policies of birth control were put in place after independence.”
2. The Period of Neutrality, 1947-51: The period following the independence until the beginning
of the planning era was one of neutrality. The Government of India was busy with the post-
independence problems like rehabilitation of the people following the Partition, reorganisation
of the States and Pakistan’s invasion of Kashmir.
However, at one of the meetings of the Planning Commission in 1949, Jawaharlal Nehru laid
emphasis on the need for family planning programme in India.
3. The Period of Experimentation, 1951-61: During the first decade (1951-61) of planned economic
development, family planning as a method of population control was started as a government
programme in India. The National Family Planning Programme was launched in 1952 with the
objective of “reducing birth rate to the extent necessary to stabilise the population at a level
consistent with the requirement of the national economy.”
This programme was started on an experimental basis with a Plan outlay of Rs. 65 lakh in the
First Plan and Rs. 5 crore in the Second Plan. It was based on Clinical Approach to provide
services to those who were motivated to visit family planning centres set up by the Government.
4. The Beginning of the Population Control Policy 1961 to 2000: With the rapid growth of population
in the 1961 Census by 21.5 per cent, the Extension Approach to family planning was adopted in
the Third Plan. This approach emphasised the adoption of an educational approach to family
6
planning through Panchayat Samitis, Village Development Committees and other groups so as
to change the attitudes, behaviour and knowledge of the people towards family planning.
The family planning programme was also made target oriented and Rs. 27 crore were allocated
during the Plan for this purpose. The target was to reduce the birth rate to 25 per 1000 persons
by 1973. To make this programme popular, the Cafeteria Approach was adopted.
Under this approach, the couples were given advice on different types of family planning methods
to be adopted. The choice of a particular method was left to them. For the effective working of the
family planning programme, a separate Department of Family Welfare was created in the Ministry
of Health and Family Planning in 1966. High priority was accorded to the family planning programme
during the Fourth Plan by allocating Rs. 330 crore.
The aim was to reduce the birth rate to 25 per 1000 persons by 1980-81. For this, efforts were to be
directed towards:
(a) Social acceptability for the notion of a small family;
(b) Increasing information and knowledge about family planning methods both in urban and
rural areas; and
(c) Making available the various devices and equipment to the couples.
Another important measure was the integration of family planning services with health, maternity
and child health care and nutrition. Thus, the family planning programme was made more broad-
based. To make this programme more effective, Selective Approach was adopted under which the
couples in the reproductive age group of 25 to 35 years were persuaded to undergo sterilisation.
The 1971 Census showed a rapid growth in population by 24.6 per cent. To control this rapid growth,
the Fifth Plan laid down the ambitious target of reducing the birth rate to 30 per 1000 by the end of
the Plan (1978-79) and to 25 per 1000 by 1983-84.
For achieving the targets, it proposed to protect 33 per cent of couples against conception by 1978-
79 against and 16-17 per cent at the end of the Fourth Plan. To implement the policy, monetary
incentives were given to couples undergoing sterilisation. This was followed by the compulsory
sterilisation during The National Emergency in 1975.
For the first time, National Population Policy was announced in 1976 to mount “a direct assault on
the problem of numbers. Its salient features were:
(1) To raise the age of marriage for girls to 18 years and for boys to 21 years;
(2) To take special measures to raise the level of female education in all States;
(3) Raising the monetary incentive to persons undergoing sterilisation according to the number
of children in the family; and
(4) Additional incentives to government employees undergoing sterilisation, having up to two

children.
Targets of sterilisation were fixed in all the States. As a result, the number of sterilisations rose from
9.4 lakh in 1973-74 to 82.6 lakh in 1976-77. But this was due to the adoption of compulsory sterilisation
by the majority of State governments taking advantage of the emergency, many States resorted to
unfair and coercive methods to sterilise people of all ages. This led to mass resentment and unrest
among the people. As a result, family planning programme became very unpopular.
7
In the post-emergency period, the Janata Government announced a New Population Policy in 1977.
The main features of this policy were:
(a) Renaming the family planning programme into family welfare programme;
(b) Fixing the marriage age for girls at 18 years and for boys at 21 years. This has been
implemented by the Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Act, 1978;
(c) Making sterilisation voluntary;
(d) Including population education as part of normal course of study (formal education);
(e) Monetary incentive to those who go in for sterilization and tubectomy;
(f) Private companies to be exempted from corporate taxes if they popularise birth control
measures among their employees;
(g) Use of media for spreading family planning in rural areas, etc. This policy put an end to
compulsory sterilisation and laid emphasis on voluntary sterilization. This slowed down the
family planning programme. As a result, the number of sterilizations fell from 82.6 lakh in
1976-77 to 9 lakh in 1977-78.
The Sixth Plan laid down the long-term demographic goal of reducing the net reproduction rate
(NRR) to 1 by 2000 by reducing crude birth rate to 21, crude death rate to 9, infant mortality rate to
less than 60 per 1000, and couple protection rate (CPR) to 60 per cent.
The goal of attaining NRR of 1 was revised to 2006-11 in the Seventh Plan by reducing crude birth rate
to 29, crude death rate to 10.4, infant mortality rate to 90 per 1000, and couple protection rate to 42
per cent. Further, the Seventh Plan laid emphasis on the two-child family norm. To make it successful,
it intensified family planning, maternity and child health programmes.
To achieve the goal of NRR of 1, the Eighth Plan extended it to the period 2011 -16. The targets laid
down during the Plan were crude birth rate at 26, infant mortality at 70 per 1000 and couple protection
rate to 56 per cent.
To achieve these targets, the Government replaced the earlier Population Control Approach by the
Reproductive and Child Health Approach in October 1997 to stabilise population and improve the
quality of life. The focus of this approach was on decentralised, area specific macro-planning.
It led to several new schemes for improving quality and coverage of welfare services for women,
children and adolescents such as child survival, safe motherhood programme, and universal
immunisation programme (UIP), reproductive tract infections (RTI), etc.
During the Ninth Plan, the earlier approach of using NRR (Net Reproduction Rate) of 1.0 was changed
to a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 2.1. This level of TFR had been projected to be achieved by 2026 in
the Plan. Further, with increased RCH (Reproductive and Child Health), the targets laid down by the
end of the Ninth Plan (2002) had been infant mortality rate of 50 per 1000, crude birth rate of 23,
total fertility rate of 2.6 and CPR of 60 per cent.
In 2001, the National Policy for Empowerment of Women was adopted with the ultimate objective
of ensuring women their rightful place in society by empowering them as the agents of socio-
economic change and development. Women empowerment is, therefore, an important approach
adopted in the Tenth Five Year Plan for the development of women.
To this effect, a National Plan of Action for Empowerment of Women, with a view to translating the
National Policy of Empowerment of Women into action in a time bound manner has been adopted
8
as a priority agenda for action by the Department of Women and Child Development (DWCD) of the
Ministry of HRD. So the Government’s population policy has shifted from population control to
family welfare and to women empowerment.
Expenditure on Family Welfare:

Table 32.1 shows the Provision for expenditure on family welfare in various five year plans up to the
Tenth Plan.
Up to the Fifth Plan, the expenditure on family planning was very small. It was only from the Sixth
Plan that it had been increasing both in absolute terms and as percentage of total plan outlay. In
absolute terms, it increased from Rs. 1,448 crores during the Sixth Plan to Rs. 15,120 crore during the
Ninth Plan. As the percentage of total plan outlay, it ranged between 1.3 to 1.4 per cent up to the
Eighth Plan.
It was only in the Ninth Plan that it had increased to 3.1 per cent. It has been stipulated at 3.0 per
cent in the Tenth Plan. This shows that except during the Ninth Plan, the Government did not
provide adequate financial assistance to the family welfare programme. It was during the Ninth
Plan that the Government announced the National Population Policy on 15 February, 2000 which is
discussed here in detail.
National Population Policy, 2000:

India’s population reached 100 crore on May 11, 2000 and it is estimated that if the current trends of
population increase continue, India will become the most populous country in the world by
overtaking China around 2045. During the 20th century, India’s population increased nearly five
times, from 23 crore to 100 crore, while during the same period, world’s population increased nearly
three times from 200 crore to 600 crore.
With a current annual addition of 1.55 crore in population, it seems difficult to maintain a balance
for conserving the resource endowment and environment in the country. For promoting sustainable
development with more equitable distribution, there is an urgent need for population stabilisation.
To meet the reproductive and child health care needs of the people of India and to achieve the
replacement TFR by 2010, the provision of policy framework for advancing goals, priorities to various
9
strategies etc. are available in the National Population Policy, 2000. The basic aim of this policy is to
cover various issues of maternal health, child survival and contraception and to make reproductive
health care accessible and affordable to all.
Objectives:
There are three types of objectives in the National Population Policy (NPP) 2000:
1. The Immediate Objective: The immediate objective is to address the unmet needs for
contraception, health care infrastructure and health personnel and to provide integrated service
delivery for basic reproductive and child health care.
2. The Medium Term Objective: The medium term objective is to bring the Total Fertility Rate
(TFR) to replacement level by 2010 through vigorous implementation of inter-sectorial
operational strategies.
3. The Long Term Objective: The long term objective is to achieve a stable population by 2045 at
a level consistent with the requirements of sustainable economic growth, social development,
and environment protection.
Targets:
The following are the targets of National Population Policy:
1. Achieve zero growth rate of population by 2045.
2. Reduce infant mortality rate to below 30 per thousand live births.
3. Reduce maternal mortality ratio to below 100 per 1, 00,000 live births.
4. Reduce birth rate to 21 per 1000 by 2010.
5. Reduce total fertility rate (TFR) to 2.1 by 2010.
National Socio-Demographic Goals for 2010:
To fulfill these objectives and targets, the National Socio-Demographic goals have been formulated
which in each case is to be achieved by the year 2010.
They are as follows:
1. Make school education free and compulsory up to the age of 14 and reduce dropouts at primary
and secondary school levels to below 20 per cent for both boys and girls.
2. Address the unmet needs for basic reproductive and child health services, supplies and
infrastructure.
3. Achieve universal immunization of children against all vaccine preventable diseases.
4. Promote delayed marriage for girls, not before 18 and preferably after the age of 20 years.
10
5. Prevent and control communicable diseases.
6. Achieve universal access to information/counselling and services for fertility regulation and
contraception with a wide basket of choices.
7. Achieve 80 per cent institutional deliveries and 100 per cent deliveries by trained persons.
8. Achieve 100 per cent registration of births, marriage and pregnancy.
9. Integrate Indian Systems of Medicine (ISM) in the provision of reproductive and child health
services and in reaching out to households.
10. Contain the spread of Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and promote greater
integration between the management of Reproductive Tract Infections (RTI) and Sexually
Transmitted Infections (STI) and the National AIDS Control Organisation.
11. Bring about convergence in implementation of related social sector programmes so that family
welfare becomes a people centered programme.
12. Promote vigorously the small family norm to achieve replacement levels of TFR.
The Technical Group on Population Projection has projected India’s population as 116 crore in 2010,
but it may reduce to 110.70 crore in 2010 if the National Population Policy, 2000 is fully implemented.
This can be seen from Table 32.2.
Moreover, the projections of crude birth rate, infant mortality rate and total fertility rate are shown
in Table 32.3. These projections are feasible if the National Population Policy 2000 is fully
implemented.
11
Organisation:
To implement the policy in order to achieve various objectives, targets and socio¬-demographic
goals, the following organizational structure has been proposed by the National Population Policy:
1. The appointment of a National Commission on Population to be presided over by the Prime

Minister. The chief ministers of all the States and related ministers will be its members.
2. There will be a State Commission on Population in every State headed by the chief minister.
3. The new policy will be implemented by the Panchayats and Municipalities (PRIs) at the
grassroots levels.
Motivational and Promotional Measures for Adoption of the Norm of Small Family:
The motivational and promotional measures for adoption of small family norm are:
1. Strict enforcement of Child Marriage Act, 1976.
2. Facilities for safe abortion to be expanded and strengthened.
3. Strict enforcement of the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994.
4. Increased vocational training schemes for girls leading to self- employment to be encouraged.
5. Panchayats and Zila Parishads to be rewarded and honoured for exemplary performance in
universalising the small family norm, achieving reductions in infant mortality and birth rates
and promoting literacy and completion of primary schooling.
6. A revolving fund to be set up for income-generating activities by village level self-help groups
who provide community level health care services.
7. The Balika Samridhi Yojna run by the Department of Women and Child Development to promote
survival and care of the girl child to be continued. A cash incentive of Rs. 500 is awarded at the
birth of the girl child up to two children.
8. A Family Welfare-Linked Health Insurance Plan to be introduced. Couples below the poverty
line who undergo sterilisation with not more than two living children would become eligible
(along with children) for health insurance (for hospitalisation) not exceeds Rs. 5,000 and a
personal accident insurance cover for the spouse undergoing sterilisation.
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9. Maternity Benefits Scheme runs by the Department of Rural Development to continue. A cash
incentive of Rs. 500 is awarded to mothers who have their first child after 19 years of age, for
birth of the first or the second child. Disbursement of cash award will in future be linked to
compliance with antenatal check-up, institutional delivery by trained birth attendant, and
registration of birth and BCG immunisation.
10. Couples below the poverty line who marry after the legal age of marriage, register the marriage,
have their first child after the mother reaches the age of 21, accept the small family norm and
adopt a terminal method after the birth of the second child to be rewarded.
11. A wider affordable choice of contraceptives to be made accessible at diverse delivery points
with counselling services to enable acceptors to exercise voluntary and informed consent.
12. Products and services to be made affordable through innovative social marketing schemes.
13. Crèches and child care centres to be set up for income generating activities by village level
self-help groups who provide community level health care services.
14. Local entrepreneurs at village levels to be provided soft loans and to be encouraged to run
ambulance to supplement the existing arrangements for transportation during medical
exigencies.
15. The 42nd Constitutional Amendment has frozen the number of representatives in the Lok
Sabha (on the basis of population) at 1971 Census levels. The freeze is currently valid until
2001, and has served as an incentive for State Governments to fearlessly pursue the agenda of
population stabilisation. This freeze needs to be extended until 2026.
Implementation of NPP, 2000: National Commission on Population:
In pursuance of NPP, 2000, the Central Government has set up a National Commission on Population
(NCP) on 11 May, 2000. It is presided over by the Prime Minister, the Chief Ministers of all States and
UTs and the Central Minister-in-charge of concerned Central Ministries and Departments, reputed
demographers, public health professionals and non-government organisations etc. are its members.
State Level Commissions on Population presided over by the Chief Minister have been set up with
the objective of ensuring the implementation of the NPP.
The functions of the Commission are:
1. To review, monitor and direct the implementation of the NPP with a view to achieve the
specified targets ;
2. To promote synergy between health, educational, environmental and developmental

programmes so as to hasten population stabilization;
3. To promote inter-sectorial co-ordination in planning and implementation of the programmes

through different agencies at the Centre and in the States; and
4. To develop a vigorous people’s programme to support this national effort.
The first meeting of NCP was held on 22 July, 2000, where the Prime Minister announced two major
steps:
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1. The formation of an Empowered Action Group within the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
to focus on those States which are poor in the national socio-demographic indices.
2. Establishment of National Population Stabilisation Fund (NPSF) with seed money of Rs. 100
crore to provide a window for channelizing funds from national voluntary sources. The Prime
Minister appealed to the corporate sector, industry, trade organisations and individuals to
generously contribute to this fund and thus help in the national effort to stabilise population.
A Strategic Support Group consisting of secretaries of concerned sectoral ministries has been
constituted as a Standing Advisory Group to the Commission. Nine working groups have been
constituted to look into specific aspects of implementation of the programmes aimed at achieving
the targets set in NPP. The NCP has allocated funds for action plans drawn up by the district magistrates
in poorly performing districts to implement programmes to accelerate decline in fertility.
Evaluation:
This is a broad-based policy which relies more on persuasive and positive measures rather than on
coercive methods. It demonstrates the Government’s concern for the rapid growth of population
and its stabilisation from the long¬-term perspective. At the same time, it lays emphasis on both
the qualitative and quantitative aspects of population.
However, this policy has been criticised on the following grounds:
1. The Swaminathan Committee (1993) had recommended the year 2015 as the target for
population stabilisation which the NPP has pushed to the year 2045.
2. The Swaminathan Committee was against providing cash incentives to couples undergoing
sterilisation on the ground of misuse. But the NPP has proposed the same.
3. Critics point out that the NPP is soft towards the male participants. The various motivational
and promotional measures for the adoption of small family norm appear to convey that the
women will bear the burden of population control rather than men. This is revealed by the fact
that there has been a steady decline in vasectomies over the last two decades and presently
over 97 per cent of sterilizations are tubectomy in women.
4. The NPP commits the same mistake which had been made by the earlier population policies. It
depends upon its implementation on the bureaucracy rather than on NGOs (non- governmental
organisations).
5. The proposal that the National Commission on Population (NCP) should be chaired by the
Prime Minister has been criticised, because being a very busy person, the Prime Minister
would not be able to attend it. This would delay various decision making process on population
control.
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POPULATION PROBLEMS:
1) Developing World
Much of the future increase in population of less developed countries would be due to the population
momentum. Population momentum refers to the fact the children who have already arrived will
continue to increase the number of those in the reproductive age-group even after a significant
decline in fertility. For instance, the fertility rates of the less developed realm have declined, on an
average, by about 40 per cent since 1960s, but due to the demographic momentum, number of
women in the reproductive age group in their case has doubled since then. During 1970- 90 alone,
500 million have been added in the youthful age-group in less developed countries. Even with
further reduction in the fertility rates of big countries like China and India, there will be huge
addition of population in absolute numbers for longer time.
The growth of youthful age group also affects a variety of development objectives, for example,
creating employment opportunities, providing housing and other type of social infrastructures like
schools, health centres etc. In this respect, the large countries like India still require improvement
in the quality of their services.
The less developed realm with less than 20 per cent of the world’s resources to its credit has to
support 75 per cent of the total world’s population, which is itself is a major population problem.
The less developed regions, by and large, are confined to tropical and subtropical latitudes. These
are mainly traditional societies. The demographic situation prevailing in the less developed realm,
broadly speaking consists of : (i) wide variety in densities within them (crowded Java in Indonesia
and empty Sahara typify the contrasts), (//) high levels of fertility, which have begun to decline
gradually only recently, (Hi) sharply declining mortality, (iv) high and accelerating rates of population
growth, (v) low levels of health, (vi) inadequate diets, (vii) widespread poverty, (viii) meagre average
per capita productivity (of course with a wide range of production spectrum within themselves),
(ix) mass illiteracy, (x) low age at marriage, (xi) high dependency ratio age-structure, (xii) more than
half the male workforce still in agriculture, (xiii) low proportion of industrial population, (xiv) scarcity
of capital for infrastructural expansion, (xv) widespread unemployment and underemployment,
(xvi) low degree of urbanisation, and (xvii) highly immobile population, where majority of the
people live their entire life at their birth place only.
The second impediment in the progress of less developed countries mentioned earlier was that of
scarcity of capital. The less developed countries can acquire the required capital either by way of aid
or loan from the developed world or by way of heavily taxing their poor populations, which have
limited capacity to bear the tax burden.
Lack or inadequacy of technology and innovation hindering fast economic development is major
problem in the developing word. One school of thought optimistically opines that the scarcity of
their natural resources is primarily the product of their under-development. Their under-
development is not the product of their scarce resources. This school of thought believes in the
potentialities of genuine technological innovations that take place in due course of time. Thus, this
school believes that the scarcity of natural resources is not likely to impose serious constraints on
combined economic improvement and population growth in less developed countries because
even the present technology is capable of multiplying the food production by 4.5 times in next 4-5
decades so as to match the growing populations. This is directly linked to low productivity levels in
countries like India, Pakistan, China, Myanmar, Nepal, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines etc. Low
productivity means slow growth which is the root cause of rapid population growth in these countries.
Low Population Levels or under population is a major in some region of the developing world. It is
the strange case with many countries having abundant natural resources which lie untapped for
15
want of human resources. These countries include Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Zaire, Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan etc.
Lack of Diversification of Economy is another major issue in most of the developing world. Lack of
development of secondary and tertiary sectors leaves limited employment opportunities for the
skilled and the educated that move to more developed towns or to foreign countries in search of
better job opportunities. This results in a distorted demographic structure in both the countries as
well as brain drain in these countries reinforcing under development through the loss of skilled
human resource.
Low standards of living and poor living conditions in the developing world lead to under-
nourishment, malnutrition and lack of hygiene. As a result, incidence of diseases is high leading to
high rates of mortality, especially among children and pregnant mothers. Besides, stunting and
underweight and wasting in growing children will adversely affect the quality of human resource
which will in turn affect developmental prospects of these countries in the long run.
Tradition-Bound Societies in these countries with their Inward looking attitudes restrict the process
of diffusion of knowledge, technology etc. which will have multiple effects on the progress and
development such as slow dissemination of awareness regarding birth control, family planning etc.
Caste system inhibits social mobility in societies like India.
2) Developed World
The developed countries are characterised by high levels of industrialisation and urbanisation, high
per capita incomes, dependence of a major part of the workforce on secondary and tertiary activities,
and an efficient and productive agricultural sector. But still the developed world is facing
demographic problems which are different from that of the developing world.
The trends in fertility and mortality determine the age structure of a population. When the size of
older segment of a population increases in relation to the younger segment, the population is said
to be ageing. Such a process has been in operation for a long time in the developed world as most of
the developed countries have completed their demographic evolution. Consequently, the
proportion of young population is low in their population. Only about one-fourth of their population
is below the age of 15 years. Since in the developed countries, the future progress in extending the
life expectancy will, in all probabilities be directed towards the elderly population, such mortality
declines shall further intensify the process of ageing in these countries.
• Aging population pose a serious challenge to the fiscal and macroeconomic stability due to
1. Reduced tax revenue because of reduction in work force and production activities
2. Increasing wage rate due to the shortage of labour force can hamper economic development.
3. Increase in real tax rate because of reduction in the disposable income of the wage earners
due to high dependency ratio
4. Reduction in savings due to high dependency ratio, leading to a fall in capital formation
5. Increased government spending on pension, healthcare, and social benefits programs for the
elderly. This may hurt economic growth and overall quality of life if governments need to
divert public spending from education and infrastructure investment to finance programs for
the elderly.
16
6. The funding for the social security measures in the future for the current working age population
post retirement is also a major challenge in the developed world
Shortage of Labour is another major issue. Besides the aging of working population, as standards of
education improve, the children remain longer at school and join the workforce later. This implies
slow expansion of the workforce. As a result, many countries of Europe face shortage of labour. High
wage rates disrupt the overall economic pattern.
Lastly, one of the most significant problems being faced by the countries of the more developed
realm is the problem of immigration. Since there is a wide gap in the standards of living between
the developed countries and the less developed countries, the developed realm has been attracting
migrants from all over the world on a large scale. In earlier days when the developed countries of
the new world and a few such countries of Europe were in the need of unskilled labour, these
countries encouraged immigration. But as their labour requirement squeezed, their immigration
laws and regulations became more and more stringent. These days almost every developed country
has specific immigration laws and policies most suitable to the country’s requirement. The
immigration policies of these countries not only try to encourage selective immigration on the base
of education and skills but also discriminate on the basis of race, region etc. The assimilation of
migrant people into the society is also a big challenge for these countries.
The increasing incidence of illegitimacy is another problem concerning the fertility of the developed
countries that deserves a mention here. There are countries where the proportion of illegitimate
children is alarmingly high. This has its own socio-economic and psychological implications. The
children who are not owned by their parents generate many psychological and social problems in
the society.
The preceding discussion reveals that the major population problems of the developed world include:
slow growth of population, high incidence of illegitimacy, large scale illegal/ legal Immigration from
within and without developed countries, ageing at the apex, higher male mortality rates and
associated deficiency of males, and high degree of urban congestion and urban vice.
The problems being faced by the developed countries with respect to their demographic structure
are typical and very much different from those being experienced by the less developed countries.
Moreover, some of the developed countries, which have had a long history of settlement, have
greater strain on their resources in comparison to the developed countries of the new world.
POPULATION AS SOCIAL CAPITAL

If a population to be considered as social capital, it must be characterised by:
 Civic engagement
 Political equality
 Solidarity, trust and tolerance, and
 A strong associational life.
These features could make a population cohesive and economically productive and empowered.
But social capital may have some negative features as well. Without ‘bridging’ social capital, ‘bonding’
groups can become isolated and disenfranchised from the rest of society and, most importantly,
from groups with which bridging must occur in order to denote an ‘increase’ in social capital.
17
Bonding social capital is a necessary antecedent for the development of the more powerful form of
bridging social capital. Bonding and bridging social capitals can work together productively if in
balance, or they may work against each other.
As social capital bonds and stronger homogeneous groups, the likelihood of bridging social capital
is attenuated. Bonding social capital can also perpetuate sentiments of a certain group, allowing for
the bonding of certain individuals together upon a common radical ideal. The strengthening of
insular ties can lead to a variety of effects such as: ethnic marginalisation or social isolation. In
extreme cases, ethnic cleansing may result if the relationship between different groups is so strongly
negative.
Social capital may also lead to bad outcomes if the political institution and democracy in a specific
country is not strong enough and is therefore overpowered by the social capital groups.
Furthermore, if consensus rules and induces collective action, and the societies with large stock of
social capital are devoid of conflict and contestation—an ideal situation which may not exist in
reality—such societies would become rather static and lifeless. As A. Amin points out, societies
should aspire to fostering “a new civic politics… as an arena of social contestation”, enabling the
civic sphere to function dynamically “as a source of democratic change”.
Social capital and health:
Research has shown that higher social capital and social cohesion leads to improvements in health
conditions. Recent research shows that the lower the trust among citizens, the higher the average
mortality rate.
Trust combined with formal and informal social networks help people to: access health education
and information, design better health care delivery systems, act collectively to build and improve
infrastructure, advance prevention efforts, and address cultural norms which may be detrimental
to health.
Prevention is critical in improving health, standards of communities and nations but it can only be
effective if it is supported by formal and informal networks through which people receive
information and medicine, such as vaccines.
Social capital helps prevent crime and violence:
In their recent work in Jamaica, Moser and Holland (1997) underscore the importance of the “violence-
poverty-social institution nexus … the relationship between poverty and violence is mediated
positively or negatively through social institutions, ranging from the family to informal local
associations such as sports clubs and dance halls to formal organisations such as the Church, schools,
and police”.
Through shared values and norms, the level of community violence can be reduced or kept low.
People who have informal relations with their neighbours can look out for each other and ‘police’
their neighbourhoods. In addition, inter-family social capital provides support networks for family
members overwhelmed by such stressors as poverty and unemployment. This support can help to
reduce drug abuse and domestic violence—potential routes to patterns of violent behaviour.
But if state action is lacking or ineffective, social capital can become a substitute for state action. We
have seen in India, many instances of informal justice systems developing within communities as a
response to the lack of law and order such as Khap panchayat, mob lynching etc.( e.g. people cheer
18
as a thief is caught and beaten up before being handed over to the authorities).
This is an example of social capital becoming a security system. But this could lead to ‘perverse’
social capital. Community-based organisations which threaten the status quo of violence and crime
are frequently forced out of operation by mafia and gang leaders who are reaping the benefits of
the current system of weak law and order enforcement by the state.
Rubio (1997) discusses ‘perverse’ social capital as the trust and reciprocity among members in anti-
social activities such as corruption and terrorism. He explains that perverse social capital breaks
down efficiency within society, rather than enhancing it by stimulating rent-seeking activities (e.g.,
corruption) and criminal behaviours which further contribute to the strengthening of organisations
which perpetuate this situation.
Social capital and education:
The educational attainments of a population are linked to levels of economic development. Finances
alone do not help in increasing educational levels of a population: family, community and state
involvement help increase the relevance and quality of education by improving ownership, building
consensus, reaching remote and disadvantaged groups, mobilising additional resources, and
strengthening institutional capacity.
However, successful public education systems require a unique combination of financial, human
and social capital that reflects the particular needs of the communities they serve. Financial resources
are necessary for maintenance of materials, and salaries.
Social capital is not just an input for education, but is also an important by-product of education.
Social capital is produced through education in three fundamental ways:
 Students practice social capital skills, such as participation and reciprocity;

 Schools provide forums for community activity;
 Through civil education students learn how to participate responsibly in their society.
Education can also promote societal cohesion and strengthen citizenship when children of all socio-
economic backgrounds are enrolled in the public education system.
Unfortunately, if the population is characterised by inequality and there is strong social capital
among elites, public education can be impaired if those wealthy families opt out of the public
school system and choose private schools. This strips communities of financial resources, local
leadership and students who are well-prepared to learn. The result is the school system with little
political influence to demand public resources and fewer parents who have the time and money to
join voluntary school associations.
Similarly family and community social capital can negatively impact youth’s attitudes towards
education if, for example, communities do not value education and see it as irrelevant because of
the perception that the education does not lead to formal employment or improved standards of
living.
Social capital and environment:
Sustaining resources for the benefit of all the members of a population calls for cooperation in the
management of common property resources. Community-based organisations preserve the
environment and local livelihoods when they come together to protect local natural resources such
19
as, lakes, rivers and forests etc., from pollution and destruction by disseminating environmentally-
friendly practices locally and publicising cases of corporate irresponsibility globally.
Rural communities may be endowed with land (natural capital), but they often do not have the
skills (human capital) and organisations (social capital) which help turn natural resources into physical
assets and protect those assets from degradation. Social capital is significant because it affects rural
people’s capacity to organise for development. Social capital helps groups to bond together to raise
their common concerns with the state and the private sector.
Social capital and water use & sanitation:
In many developing countries, epidemics are mainly caused by the lack of clean water and sanitation.
Social capital contributes to the sharing of information about sanitation as well as the building of
community infrastructure. Synergy between the state and civil society can improve infrastructure
design and maintenance by securing financial resources and ensuring that projects respond to
community needs.
For projects to be sustainable, consumer demand must drive key investment decisions. This means
that consumers must be involved in the project and with each other to determine what shared goals
they want to achieve through the implementation of a project in the short and long run.
Water should be managed at the lowest possible level. “Employing a demand-responsive approach
at the community level significantly increases the likelihood of water system sustainability.
Community mobilisation is important to facilitate the aggregation of demand.”
Social capital and economic development:
“For any two countries with the same level of income, the one with more social capital tends to
have more schooling, a more expensive financial system, better fiscal policy and a wider telephone
network. Causation could run in both directions, but the results are suggestive.” (Temple, 1998)
Increasing evidence is appearing at the macro level which identifies trust, civic norms, and other
factors of social capital as a key condition for economic development.
Fukuyama says, “It is clear that both the need for an industrial policy and the ability to implement
one effectively are dependent on cultural factors like social capital.” Trade at the macro level has
been found to be influenced by social capital. While most work on social capital is microeconomic,
social capital has implications for the effect of trade and migration, economic reform, regional
integration, new technologies which affect how people interact, security, and more.
It has also been found out that neighbouring states that have not been friendly with each other may
benefit from a regional integration agreement which raises trade and therefore trust between
them, raises each country’s stake in the other’s welfare, and thus raises security.
As opposed to the classical notion that the social and economic welfare impact of regional integration
is ambiguous, regional integration can be an optimal way to improve the standard of living when
there are security problems between neighbouring countries, says Schiff.
Rodrick points out that economic growth which benefits a small section of population (as in the case
of open trade yielding benefits to nations but which are not evenly distributed among the populace)
increases inequality and can lead to social disintegration.
20
Social capital is important for societies to prosper economically and for development to be
sustainable. Virtually all economic behaviour, says Granovetter (1995), is embedded in networks of
social relations. According to Dasgupta (1988), social capital and trust can make economic transactions
more efficient by giving parties access to more information, enabling them to coordinate activities
for mutual benefit, and reducing opportunistic behaviour through repeated transactions. Social
capital plays a significant part in shaping the outcomes of economic action at both micro and macro
levels, as Rodrick (1998) points out.
At the micro level, social capital is used by the poor to protect themselves against unexpected
events such as bad health, bad weather, and to pool their resources. Informal relationships could
help the poor set up small enterprises to augment their income and could often mean the difference
between survival and despair.
In rural communities, social ties are often strong and longstanding. Informal ties and social norms
provide essential safety nets. These safety nets are especially important because income and the
availability of food vary with seasons and depending on weather; in many countries there are no
formal social programmes or existing safety nets do not reach people in villages.
Also at micro level, social capital facilitates valuable information exchange about products and
markets and reduces the costs of contracts and extensive regulations and enforcement. Repeated
transactions and business reputation provide the necessary incentives for parties to act in mutually
beneficial ways.
Social capital has its importance at the macro level as well. For constructive state participation in
economic development there has to be a delicate balance between external social ties and internal
cohesiveness. Ideally,” highly skilled and well- respected state bureaucracy utilises its close working
relationship with business leaders to enhance the market performance of private and public sector
organisations. Rodrick points out that government effectiveness, accountability and the ability to
enforce rules fairly directly impact economic growth be enabling or disabling the development of
domestic firms and markets and encouraging or discouraging foreign investment.
Fukuyama (1995) found that more expansive social networks of the United States and Germany
generate a greater number of large corporations than do society’s like- China, in which family
networks form the foundation of private enterprise.
Reduction of rural poverty and sustaining the improvements are socio-economic development
goals in most countries. Rural communities may be endowed with land and water (natural capital),
but they often do not have the skills (human ‘ capital) and organisations (social capital) which are
needed to turn the natural resources into physical assets. Social capital helps groups to perform the
following key development tasks effectively and efficiently: plan and evaluate— make decisions;
mobilise resources and manage them; communicate with each other and coordinate their activities;
and resolve conflicts.
Not only can social capital improve access to natural resources, it can also improve access to physical
capital. The Grameen (Rural) Bank of Bangladesh provides access to credit to poor people in
thousands of villages. Members have developed rules to maximise repayment of loans, but trust
plays a critical role in the very high success rate, particularly in the absence of collateral.
Experience with rural water users associations in countries as diverse as Pakistan, Cote d’ lvoire and
the USA, indicate that maintenance is more efficient and programmes more likely to be sustained if
users are empowered to play a substantial role in running the systems.
There is, however, a negative side when group norms are enforced. Individual growth and creativity
is often stifled by traditions. Those who do not conform are often ostracised or at least ridiculed.
21
The world is seeing increasing urbanisation. Very soon more than 50 per cent of the world population
will be living in urban areas. Urban areas are not conducive to the development of societal
cooperation. It is difficult to develop and sustain social capital and trust in large groups.
Inequality is highly apparent in urban areas where the rich and the poor live and work in close
proximity but seldom develop relationships. Inequality can adversely affect cohesion. In most of
the cities, housing separates people by income. Many urban poor live in slums or ghettos which are
physically isolated from business, health facilities and public transportation.
The spatial isolation of the poor is compounded by social isolation. The rich and the poor rarely
participate in the same activities, groups and associations. Lack of connections to those with
resources, both physical and otherwise, results in fewer opportunities for the poor. Spatial and
social isolation — a lack of bridging social capital—can lead to a cycle of poverty, i.e., children of
poor parents have a few or no opportunities to lift themselves out of poverty (Wilson 1987).
Ethnic conflict and violence, fuelled by strong intra-group social capital and weak inter-group social
capital, may hinder economic growth and the effectiveness of urban governments in areas where
multiple ethnic groups present. Many cities are troubled by crime and violence. Fear of violence
erodes stocks of social capital.
Shared values and norms can reduce or keep low the level of community violence. People who have
informal relations with their neighbours can look out for each other and their neighbourhoods.
Inter- family social capital provides support networks for family members burdened by stress caused
by poverty and unemployment. This support can help to reduce drug abuse and violence etc. Many
poor people cannot secure a formal work in the cities. In such cases, informal relations provide a
crucial safety-net for the urban poor and improve their chances and quality of day-to-day survival.
This is especially true when formal safety nets, such as health care and unemployment benefits are
not available or extend only to the participants in the ‘organised’ sector of the economy.
Poverty reduction requires effective financial organisations and instruments at the national level
as well as at the household level. Social capital can affect both formal and informal financial systems.
However, most of the world’s people are without access to equitable sources of credit or reliable
savings facilities. This is all the more so in developing countries. Some poor communities have
devised their own mechanisms for pooling resources and lending money to those who need the
most. Poor but closely-knit communities pledge their social capital in lieu of the material assets
that commercial banks require as collateral.
The most common of these mechanisms are rotating savings and credit associations which typically
involve groups of five to twenty people who trust each other. They have meetings once a week.
There is a requirement to contribute a small sum each week to a common pot. This common pot is
given to a single member each week. There is no written or formal contract; all agreements are
monitored and enforced by the group members themselves.
In the more organised sector, indigenous or “bottom-up’ approaches to providing basic savings and
credit are improved by group-based microfinance programmes, the most well-known being the
Grameen Bank of Bangladesh. Grameen also relies on the social capital among the poor to form
lending groups that monitor and enforce loan agreements, but the groups do not form of their own
accord; rather, they are initiated and coordinated by ‘outsiders’, namely Grameen staff.
The formation and maintenance of social capital between staff and borrowers is crucial to identify
and train borrowers, select and approve loan proposals, negotiate solutions when problems emerge
(e.g., crop failure following a cyclone, etc.), and fend off criticism—even hostility—from
22
moneylenders and some religious leaders.
Many poor people have an abundance of local social capital but a deficit of ‘bridging’ social capital
that links them to additional resources. Microfinance programmes have to devise ways to draw on
local social capital as a basis for forging linkages into more extensive networks and markets.
Large commercial and financial institutions also depend on social relations to improve their
performance. As Szreter observes, corporate executives are fully aware of “the importance of
exclusive informal social interactions with their peers.
It is at the clubs, parties, charity events, [private] school functions and holiday visits of the wealthy
and the super-wealthy that they do some of their most important business. They know that
establishing friendship and relationship of trust with a network of others who are in a position to
share and exchange the most valuable informal information is one of the most efficient and reliable
ways to make spectacular gains in a market economy.
In an economy that is increasingly globalised, the financial health of a nation is influenced, to a large
extent, by international capital flows. In this context, the social cohesion is one of the important
indicators of fiscal stability and sound investment climate.
Social Capital and Information Technology:
Ideally speaking, information technology has enormous potential for impacting development.
Theoretically, information technology directly reduces the costs associated with imperfect
information. In this way, information technology has the potential to increase social capital—and in
particular bridging social capital which connects actors to resources, relationships and information
beyond their immediate environment.
People in remote areas or with limited resources now have the potential to access information
traditionally found only in major urban libraries; however, this is possible only if they can locate a
computer and a phone line.
Information technology allows firms to establish relationships with suppliers and other contractors
at a lower cost and at a wider range.
Goods can now be sold via the internet which permits access to greater markets which earlier could
only be reached by those with enough capital to afford transportation. Cooperatives of craftsmen
and artisans have begun to sell their products to consumers in industrialised nations via the internet.
This typically requires an internet- accessible non-governmental organisation (NGO) to act as
intermediary between the producers and the consumers. This allows the producers to access new
markets and cut out the traditional high cost middle-men.
Civic participation in politics and society in general can be solicited through the internet.
Government can decentralise while staying in close ‘virtual’ contact to facilitate coordination.
Volunteerism can be generated by putting people in touch with the NGOs which speak to their
interests and values etc.
23
SOCIAL WELLBEING
Social well-being of any society in the world has cultural and technological overtones. The developed
countries with their advanced technology are ahead in the level of material well-being made possible
by the early and rapid industrialisation and urbanization. The result is the concomitant change in
social needs and values of those countries. But the process of industrialization and urbanization is
rather slow and limited in a majority of the Third World Countries, resulting in a very limited change
in social needs. The social values change in accordance with the social needs which are governed by
the micro-geographical conditions, level of technology and cross cultural assimilation.
The phenomena of social well-being is the most intriguing and yet interesting theme in social
geography. Several scholars in the disciplines of geography, sociology & economics have analysed
the various dimensions of social well-being.
But what is social well-being? The answer is the degree to which the needs and wants of a population
are being met. A welfare society is one in which all people have sufficient income and other means
to meet their needs; for example, where (i) all are treated with equal dignity and (ii) have equal
rights, (iii) where they have reasonable access to their needed range of services and (iv) where
there opinions are heard and respected.
Social well-being is a multifaceted phenomenon which means welfare in general and health
prosperity in particular. However, the phenomenon of social well-being is an aggregation of an
individual’s level of welfare which includes the following broad aspects.
 Physical well-being: Environmental conditions such as climatic variations, local topographical

variations, physical density, physical and mental health.
 Material well-being: Household assets including the modem electrical and electronic gadgets,
other means of conveyance and communications.
 Social well-being: Social health, social security, social amenities and social relations including
social ethos;
 Economic well-being: Employment opportunities, level of income, savings, purchasing
power, consumption of goods and services.
 Perception of well-being: Attitude towards external living and non-living things, individual/
social traits, experiences of real world situations and an element of subjectivity; and
 Spiritual well-being: Religious belief, practices, taboos and various approaches to seek
eternal truth and happiness.
The term well-being includes the various other aspects such as standard of living, social welfare,
and the level of satisfaction. However, the term social wellbeing is a synthesis of physical well-
being, material well-being, cultural and spiritual well-being, though the latter aspects are either
totally ignored or given inadequate importance in several studies.
Indicators of social well-being: The rapidly changing social values in a modern society have direct
relevance to the technological advancement at local, regional or national level in agriculture,
industrial and urbanized sectors of economy. Therefore, the selection of indicators or weighing of
indicators is based on the dominant activity of the region.
Here the main emphasis is laid on health, education, employment, recreation, social facilities and
security measures to identify the levels of social well-being with supportive field observations.
24
Smith’s general criteria of social well-being.
(1) Income, wealth and employment
 Income and Wealth.

 Employment status.
 Income supplements.
(2) The living Environment
 Housing.
 The neighbourhood.
 The physical environment.
(3) Health
 Physical health.
 Mental health.
(4) Education
 Achievement.
 Duration and quality.
(5) Social order (or disorganization)
 Personal pathologies.
 Family breakdown.
 Crime and delinquency.
 Public order and safety.
(6) Social belonging (alienation and participation)
 Democratic participation
 Criminal Justice.
 Segregation.
(7) Recreation and leisure.
 Recreation facilities.
 Art and the culture
 Leisure available.
25

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Geography (Optional) 2021

Major theories of population growth:

In brief, Malthus theory states that:

1. Population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence.

1. The need for food, and

2. The passion between sexes.

2. Thomas Doubleday’s Diet Theory:

Doubleday divides society into three groups:

Criticisms of Thomas Doubleday’s Diet Theory:

3. Jouse De Castro’s Protein Consumption Theory:

His experiment led to the following conclusions:

According to him, the fertility rates GUIDANCE IAS

Criticisms of Jouse De Castro’s Protein Consumption Theory:

4. Michael Thomas Sadler’s Destiny Theory:

But the theory of Sadler is also criticised on different grounds:

Marx explains his surplus theory of population thus:

Comparison between Malthusian and Marxian Theories of Population:

Q1. Marx view on population is more humanistic. Comment.

Factors Determining the Fertility:

Huw Jones on the determinants of fertility.

Factors Determining Mortality:

 Decline in mortality comes before the decline in fertility.

Stage I: High Stationary Stage:

E.g. isolated tribal groups such as Jarawas & Onges in India.

Stage II: Early Expanding Stage:

Stage IV: Low Stationary Stage:

Application of Demographic Transition Theory in Geographical Space:

2) Second World Countries: These countries have experienced a different pattern of

Parameters for identification:

1) Poverty 2) Un-employment 3) Illiteracy 4) frequent famines.

ACKERMAN POPULATION RESOURCE REGION:

Criteria Popula on Resources Technology

1) Egyptian type: over populated (UP, Bihar, West Bengal).

2) Brazilian type: under population (Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh,

3) Optimum populated (Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh,

 Karnataka: Malnad region is under-populated.

[Source -region] total population growth = natural growth – Emigration.

[Destination-region] Total population growth = natural growth + Immigration

A) Ravenstein’s theory of migration:

2) Migration occurs in stages: stepped migration process. It happens because information

3) Streams & counter streams of migration:

5) Preponderance of women in short-distance migration:

6) Technology & Migration:

Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration in a nut shell:

 Most migrants move only a short distance.

 There is a process of dispersion, which is the inverse of absorption.

 Each migration flow produces a compensating counter-flow.

 Long-distance migrants go to one of the great centers of commerce and industry.

 Economic factors are the main cause of migration.

B) Gravity theory of W.J Rally, 1909:

C) Principle of Least effort: (J.K Zipf), 1940:

D) Model of Intervening opportunities – S.A. Stouffer, 1940:

Thus, magnitude of migration is directly proportional to the number of opportunity at destination

Y= k X*/X, where Y = Expected migrants at destination, X* = Number of opportunities @ destination,

In India: Metropolisation process is because of: X is very low, X* is very high.

E) Model of Competing migrants – by Stouffer, 1960

Where, Y = no. of migrants between city 1 & 2,

X 0 = no. of out migrants from city 1,

X1 = no. of opportunities at city 2 (measured in terms of total immigrants),

X b = no. of Intervening Opportunities between city 1 & 2

X c = no. of migrants potentially competing for opportunities in city 2.

1) Need for migration. 2) Where to migrate.

He presented a simplified model of residential mobility. Population is distributed in discrete locations

Y= k X/X, where Y = Expected migrants at destination, X = Number of opportunities @ destination,