Population & Associated Issues - 1 | Indian Society for UPSC CSE PDF Download

Introduction

• Without people, there would be no society, economy, or culture. The current population of India is at 132.42 crores (as of 2016) and is the second-highest in the world. Also, our population is what contributes to our socio-economic structure and the diverse cultural scenario.
• According to ‘The World Population Prospects 2019’ published by the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, India is projected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country by 2027. The global population is projected to increase by another 2 billion people by 2050.

Population Size and Distribution

• The current population of India contributes to 17% of the global population.
• A recently released United Nations report said that India is expected to add 273 million people by the year 2050. According to the recent report released in 2019, India has an estimated population of 1.37 billion and China, 1.43 billion and by the year 2027, India’s population is projected to surpass China’s, making India the most populous nation in the world.
• As per details from Census 2011, Uttar Pradesh has a population of 19.98 Crores, an increase from the figure of 16.62 Crore in 2001 census. Total population of Uttar Pradesh as per 2011 census is 199,812,341 of which male and female are 104,480,510 and 95,331,831 respectively. While on the other hand, states like Sikkim and Lakshadweep have the lowest population of 0.5 million in Sikkim and only 60000 people in the island state of Lakshadweep.
• This uneven distribution of the population is due to the varying population density of the country.

What is Population Density?

• Population density refers to the total number of people per unit of area.
• It is largely dependent on the geographical location and geological factors.
• Therefore, states like Assam, Himachal Pradesh, and other hilly terrains have a lower density of population.
• While the northern plains and coastal areas like Kerala, West Bengal, and Maharashtra have very high population density.

 Registrar General of India

• Registrar General of India was founded in 1961 by the Government of India under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
• It arranges, conducts and analyses the results of the demographic surveys of India including Census of Indiaand Linguistic Survey of India.
• The position of Registrar is usually held by a civil servant holding the rank of Joint Secretary

Factors Influencing the Distribution of Population

• Geographical Factors
• Economic Factors
• Social and Cultural Factor
• Demographic factors
• Political factors

Geographical factors

• Availability of water : resides in those area where fresh water can be easily available, used for drinking, bathing and cooking, for cattle, crops, industries and navigation. These river valleys are densely populated. he Nile, Amazon, and Ganges river systems supported rich civilizations on their banks.
• Land forms : prefer living on flat plains and gentle slopes. Because areas are favourable for the crops production and to build roads and industries, for example, Ganga plains. Whereas mountainous and hilly regions are less populated due to lack of transport, agricultural and industrial development, for example Himalayan region
• Climate : Areas with very heavy rainfall or extreme and harsh climates have low population, for example Mediterranean regions. Areas with a comfortable climate, where there is not much seasonal variation attract more people.
• Soils: Fertile soils are important for agricultural and allied activities. Therefore, areas which have fertile loamy soils have dense population. E.g. Northern plains of India. The alluvial regions, deltas and the coastal regions of India support high population densities. On the other hand, mountainous regions, where soil erosion is a problem, such as the Terai region of Uttarakhand, or the sandy soils of the desert of Rajasthan, cannot support dense populations.
• Location of a place:  proximity to major towns and cities – favours concentration of population. Generally, staying within the city limits increases living costs. The city’s periphery or nearby towns provide affordable housing facilities. Cheap and reliable transportation provide convenient means of commuting.
• Natural disasters: Natural disasters discourage population concentration. Frequent storms, earthquakes, floods, wild fires discourage formation of settlements as people migrate to safer places. There are many examples of destruction of settlements due to the natural disasters.

 Socio-Economic Factors

• Minerals : Areas with mineral deposits attract industries and therefore generate employment. Skilled and semi- skilled workers move to these areas and make them densely populated. Example Katanga Zambia copper belt in Africa. The higher population densities in the Chota Nagpur Plateau of Jharkhand and in the adjoining areas of Orissa are largely due to the availability of minerals.
• Urbanization : Cities offer better employment opportunities, educational and medical facilities, better means of transport and communication and good civic amenities which attract more population.
• Transport : The growth of the population is directly proportional to the development of transport facilities. The northern plain of India has a dense network of transport routes and is a densely populated region. The peninsular plateau has a moderate network of transport routes and is a moderately populated area. The Himalayan region badly lacks transport facilities and is scarcely populated.
• Industrialization : Industrial belts provide job opportunities and attract large numbers of people. Example the Kobe-Osaka region of Japan.
• Economic activity : It is an indicator of employment opportunities. People in the rural areas are largely dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. If the land fails to support the rural population, or with more opportunities available in urban areas, they may choose to migrate to cities. Concentration of population in urban areas is an outcome of diverse economic activities and livelihood options offered by cities.
• Social Organization of communities in new areas encourages the movement of people and settling in newer lands. Man is a social animal and it becomes essential for him to form a community, creating a familiar environment where he stays.
• Attract more people due to religious and cultural significance.

Demographic Factors

• Migration : has deep influence on population distribution. The push factors, or negative circumstances, at the place of origin tend to motivate people to leave their native places to newer areas. Better opportunities in distant lands also encourage migration. People may choose to move due to land scarcity, shortage of work in current place of residence, insufficient wages or salaries, inadequate medical facilities and education, etc.
• Natural increase : is the net outcome of fertility and mortality in a region. If in a region, the fertility level is high, the population of that place tends to increase. In such situations, mortality brings stability because of deaths. Epidemics and disease have always significantly influenced mortality levels.

Political Factors

• War and political conflicts take a great toll on human lives. Death rates are high, and people are forced to move out in search of safety. Mortality rates peak and the out-migration dominates. Safer locations experience a sizeable population growth because of the in-flow of migrants.
• Political unrest and discrimination are detrimental to population growth. Clashes between different political parties or people with different religious beliefs have often resulted in a reduction of population in the affected area.
• Policies encouraging migration have often led to population growth in the destination region. International labour movements take place where rules governing cross-border migration are lenient. Migration helps in the redistribution of population.

To Sum up - No single factor can be considered as solely responsible for concentrated or scanty populations, or their distribution and growth. Most of the factors described above are interrelated and often act collectively. Advances in technology have helped humans settle in places where it was not possible a few decades ago. The tremendous population growth in the world population has forced many to settle in uninhabitable regions where there is a shortage of adequate natural resources. Earlier, physical factors determined population distribution; however, the industrial revolution and accompanying urbanization increased transport and communication networks. These developments influenced population distribution. In this light present density map of population is a cumulative outcome of the past.

Malthus’ Theory of Population Growth

• Malthus contended that the world’s population was growing more rapidly than the available food supply.
• He argued that the food supply increases in an arithmetic progression (1, 2, 3, 4, and so on), whereas the population expands by a geometric progression (1, 2, 4, 8, and so on).
• According to him, the population could increase by multiples, doubling every twenty-five years. The gap between the food supply and the population will continue to grow over time. Even though the food supply will increase, it would be insufficient to meet the needs of an expanding population. Moreover, famine and other natural calamities cause widespread sufferings and increase the death rate, which is nature’s check against the population.
• Unfortunately, humanity has only a limited ability to voluntarily reduce the growth of its population (through ‘preventive checks’ such as postponing marriage or practicing sexual abstinence or celibacy). Malthus believed ‘positive checks’ to population growth in the form of famines and diseases.
• Nature has its own ways of keeping a check on the increasing population. It brings the population level to the level of the available food supply. The positive checks include famines, earthquakes, floods, epidemics, wars, etc. When humans fail to control excessive population growth, nature plays its role.

Marx’s Response to Malthus’ Thesis

• Karl Marx went one step further and argued that starvation was caused by the unequal distribution of wealth and its accumulation by capitalists. It has nothing to do with the population.
• The population is dependent on economic and social organization. The problems of overpopulation and limits to resources, as enunciated by Malthus, are inherent and inevitable features associated with the capitalist system of production.
• He does not believe in natural laws controlling the population. According to him, capitalism created population growth in order to create a vast pool of cheap labor.

Population Composition

Sex Composition

• The Sex Ratio refers to the number of females per 1000 males in a given area at a specified time period.
• The Child Sex Ratio is the sex ratio in the age group 0-6 years (child) in a given area at a specified time period

Transgender Composition

• During the Enumeration of Census 2011, for the first time, three codes were provided i.e. Male-1, Female –2, and others -3. In case the respondent wished to record neither ‘1’ nor ‘2’, then enumerator was instructed to record sex as ‘other’ and give code ‘3’
• The population of ‘other’ as per Census 2011 is 4,87,803.

Divyang Composition

• The 2011 census shows 8 lakh households having disabled persons in the country constituting 8.3 percent of the total households.
• Total households having disabled persons show an increase of 5 lakhs from the last census.

Literacy Composition

• Literacy as a prerequisite to education is an instrument of empowerment.
• Literacy levels have improved considerably after independence and almost two-thirds of our population is now literate.

Working Population Composition

• The population of India according to their economic status is divided into three groups, namely; main workers, marginal workers, and non-workers
• Main Worker is a person who works for at least 183 days in a year.
• A marginal Worker is a person who works for less than 183 days in a year
• The work participation rate is defined as the percentage of total workers (main and marginal) to the total population.
• According to National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) conducted in 2011-12, the total workforce is estimated at 41 crore, out of which 33.69 crore were rural workers and 13.72 crore were urban workers.
• This indicates an economic status in which there is a larger proportion of the dependent population, further indicating the possible existence of a large number of unemployed or underemployed people.

 Adolescents

• At present, the share of adolescents i.e. up to the age group of 10-19 years is about 21 percent (2011).
• The adolescent population, though, regarded as the youthful population having high potentials, but at the same time they are quite vulnerable if not guided and channelized properly.

The Population Pyramid (The Age-Sex Pyramid)

• The age-sex structure of a population refers to the number of females and males in different age groups.
• A population pyramid is used to show the age-sex structure of the population. The shape of the population pyramid reflects the characteristics of the population.
• The male and female populations are broken down into 5-year age groups represented as horizontal bars along the vertical axis, with the youngest age groups at the bottom and the oldest at the top.
• The shape of the population pyramid gradually evolves over time based on fertility, mortality, and international migration trends.

Expanding Population

• The age-sex pyramid in such a case is a triangular-shaped pyramid with a wide base and is typical of less developed countries.
• These have larger populations in lower age groups due to high birth rates.

 Constant Population

• Here, the age-sex pyramid is bell-shaped and tapered towards the top.
• This shows birth and death rates are almost equal leading to a near-constant population.

Declining Population

• This pyramid has a narrow base and a tapered top showing low birth and death rates.
• The population growth in developed countries is usually zero or negative.

Trends in Growth of Population

• It is significant that the percentage decadal growth during 2001-11 has registered the sharpest decline. since Independence.
• It declined from 87% for 1981-1991 to 21.54% for the period 1991-2001, a decrease of 2.33 percentage points. For 2001-2011, this decadal growth has become 17.64%, a further decrease of 3.90 percentage points.
• Similarly, the average exponential growth rate for 2001-2011 has declined to 1.64% per annum from 1.97% per annum during 1991-2001. The average annual exponential growth rate during 1981-1991 was 2.16.

Population Policy followed in India since Independence (Post-1950)

Since the middle of the 20^th Century:

• After independence, Indian decision-makers also realized the importance and need of population control as early as in 1951- 52, though before independence a sub-committee on population was also appointed by Indian National Congress in 1940 under the chairmanship of renowned social scientist Radha Kamal Mukherjee to suggest ways and means to arrest the galloping population.
• In 1956, a Central Family Planning Board (CFPB) was created which emphasized sterilization. Up till the 1960s, a rigid policy was not adopted to arrest the fast growth of the population. The policy framed in 1951-52 was ad hoc in nature, flexible, and based on a trial and error approach.
• Until the Fifth Plan, the family planning program concerned itself primarily with birth control but in this plan ‘maternal and child health and nutrition services’ were also included as an integral part of the family planning program. Despite all the Five-Year Plans (from First to Tenth) and policies, the population of India is growing at a faster pace and taking the shape of ‘population explosion’.
• In 1961-71, the population growth rate was 25 percent which was highest in any decade after independence. At present (2001-2011), the population growth rate has declined to 1.50 percent.
• In April 1976, the First National Population Policy was framed which suggested a wide spectrum of programs including raising the statutory age of marriage, introducing monetary incentives, paying special attention to improving female literacy, etc.
• To check the alarming population growth, an attempt has been made to rejuvenate the National Family Welfare Programme
• It was emphasized that the population control program would continue purely on a voluntary basis as an integral part of a comprehensive policy package covering education, health, maternity and childcare, and women’s rights and nutrition, including an anti-poverty program. It was made by people’s programs based on the welfare approach.
• This revised strategy particularly focused on the provision of family planning strives at the doorsteps of the people. It is with this objective that the age of marriage is proposed to be raised for women from 18 to 20 years as envisaged in the National Population Policy document, 2000,
• As a part of family welfare and population control, the government has revised the PNDT Act in 2003, which was enacted in 1994. The main aim of the Act is to check female (embryo) infanticide.

Plans by Government of India for Population Control

• Fertility
• Mortality
• Migration

1. Fertility
The actual number of births the woman undergoes is broadly termed as the fertility of that woman. Commonly used measures of the fertility of the population are given below:

Determinants of High Fertility

• Religious Ideologies
• Early marriage and early child-bearing.
• Preference for sons ingrained in Indian culture.
• Lack of the right of self-determination with reference to reproduction
• Economic, social, cultural as well as the religious value of children in the Indian society
• Absence of adoption of methods of conception control.

Implications of High Fertility

• Women are tied down to child-bearing and child-rearing for the best years of their productive lives. They are, therefore, denied the opportunity to explore other avenues for self-expression and self-development.
• The burden of providing for a large family sits heavily on the bread-winner of the family. The constant struggle to maintain a subsistence level is exhausting. To escape from the problems of everyday life, he may take to drinking.
• The children, often unwanted, unloved, and neglected, are left to their own to make life bearable. The children in large families often have to start working at a very early age to supplement the slender financial resources of the family
• The girl child is the worst sufferer in these circumstances. She is often not sent to school at all or is withdrawn from school at an early age to help her mother in carrying out domestic chores and to look after her younger siblings when the mother is at work

The Recent Trend in Total Fertility Rate

• India’s total fertility rate (TFR) is declining. It is now 2.2 per woman, nearing the replacement rate of 2.1, according to the Sample Registration System (SRS) compiled by the Registrar General of India (RGI) for 2017. 
• The replacement level is the number of children needed to replace the parents, after accounting for fatalities, skewed sex ratio, infant mortality, etc.

Reason for The decrease in TFR

• Higher education, increased mobility, late marriage, financially independent women and overall prosperity are all contributing to a falling TFR.
• It goes below 2 in both urban and rural areas, where girls complete schooling and reduce further as they pass college.
• Bihar, with the highest TFR of 3.2, had the maximum percentage of illiterate women at 26.8%, while Kerala, where the literacy rate among women is 99.3%, had among the lowest fertility rates.
• As more cities come up, people move for jobs and employment tenure gets shorter, TFR may reduce further.
• Working people in urban areas want better pay, implying that they have to reduce the number of children so as to increase the time they spend at their workplace.

What needs to be Done?

• Health and education parameters need to be improved substantially to make the Indian workforce efficient and skilled.
• Enhance, support and coordinate private sector initiatives for skill development through appropriate Public-Private Partnership (PPP) models; strive for significant operational and financial involvement from the private sector
• Focus on underprivileged sections of society and backward regions of the country thereby enabling a move out of poverty
• New technology could be exploited to accelerate the pace of building human capital, including massive open online courses and virtual classrooms
• Policymakers should have a greater incentive to redouble their efforts to promote human capital so that it can contribute to economic growth and job creation.

2. Mortality

• If the rate at which people die is more than the rate at which birth occurs, the number of people (population) will decrease and the reverse will occur if the death rate is lower than the birth rate.
• Out of many measures, it is sufficient to describe three basic measures of mortality: the crude death rate, the expectation of life at birth, and the infant mortality rate.

Crude Death Rate

• It is the ratio of the total registered deaths occurring in a specified calendar year to the total mid-year population of that year, multiplied by 1000.

The Expectation of Life at Birth

• The average number of years of life which a cohort of new-born babies (that is, those born in the same year) may be expected to live if they are subjected to the risks of death at each year, according to the age-specific mortality rates prevailing in the country at the time to which the measure refers.
• An Indian born in 1950 could expect to live for 37 years, whereas today India’s life expectancy at birth nearly doubled to 68 years, by 2050, it is projected to increase to 76 years. As a result, India’s population will rise from 1.3 billion today to an estimated 1.7 billion by 2050, with a much larger elderly share of around 340 million.

Infant Mortality Rate (IMR)

• Infants are defined in demography as all those children in the first year of life who have not yet reached age one.
• It is the number of deaths of children under one year of age per 1000 live births.

Recent Trends in IMR

• As per the latest government data released in 2019, India has reduced its infant mortality rate (IMR) by 42% over 11 years–from 57 per 1,000 live births in 2006 to 33 in 2017.
• Despite the reduction, India’s IMR in 2017 remained higher than the global 4, a rate equivalent to that of the West African nation of Senegal and higher than most South Asian neighbors’ except that of Pakistan and Myanmar.
• In 2017, India’s rural areas had an IMR of 37 and urban areas 23, revealing the difference in healthcare quality
• India has the highest burden of under-five deaths in the world.
• United Nations has recently set Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and Targets. The target for India is to attain Under 5 Mortality Rate of 25/1000 live births by 2030.

Maternal Mortality Rate

• Maternal death is the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes
• As per Sample Registration System (SRS), 2011-13 reports Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) is 167 per 1,00,000 live births in the Country.

3. Migration

• Meaning - In a layman’s language, the word ‘migration’ refers to the movements of the people from one place to another.
• “migration is a form of geographical mobility or spatial mobility between one geographical unit and another, generally involving a change in residence from the place of origin or place of departure to the place of destination or place of arrival, for a considerable period of time.”
• Migration, in the social sense, refers to the physical transition of an individual or a group from one society to another. This transition usually involves abandoning one social-setting and entering another and different one.
• People may move within a country between different states or between different districts of the same state or they may move between different countries.
• Therefore, different terms are used for internal and external migration.
  • Internal migration refers to migration from one place to another within a country.
  • External migration or international migration refers to migration from one country to another.
• When people move from one place to another, the place they move from Place of Origin to Place of Destination. The place of origin shows a decrease in population while the population increases in the place of destination.
• Immigration: Migrants who move into a new place are called Immigrants
• Emigration: Migrants who move out of a place are called Emigrants.
• These terms are used only in connection with international migration.
• For example, migrants leaving India to settle down in the United States or Canada are immigrants to the United States or Canada and emigrants from India.
• In Migration and Outmigration are used only in connection with internal migration.
• ‘In migration’ refer to migration into a particular area or area of destination
• ‘Out migration’ refers to movements out of a particular area or area of origin or place of departure of the migrant. For example, migrants who come from Bihar or Uttar Pradesh to Punjab are considered to be immigrants for Punjab and out-migrants for Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
• A typology based on time classified migration into long-range migration and short-range/seasonal migration. When a move is made for a longer period, it is called long-range migration. However, when there is a permanent shift of population from one region to another, it is known as permanent migration.
• But when people shift to the sites of temporary work and residence for some or several months, it is known as periodic or seasonal migration.
• Apart from these two important types, migration could be voluntary or involuntary or forced brain drain (migration of young skilled persons) and migration of refugees and displaced persons.

What is the Need to Study Migration?

• Migration is the third component of population change, the other two being mortality and fertility. However, it is not a biological factor like the other two, which operate in a biological framework, though influenced by social, cultural, and economic factors.
• Migration is influenced by the wishes of the persons involved. Usually, each migratory movement is deliberately made, though in exceptional cases this may not hold true.
• Thus, migration is a response of human organisms to economic, social, and demographic forces in the environment. The study of migration occupies an important place in population studies, because, along with fertility and mortality, it determines the size and rate of population growth as well as its structure and characteristics.
• Migration also plays an important role in the distribution of the population of any country and determines the growth of the labor force in any area. India has witnessed the waves of migrants coming to the country from Central and West Asia and also from Southeast Asia.
• Similarly, large numbers of people from India have been migrating to places in search of better opportunities, especially to the countries of the Middle-East, Western Europe, America, Australia and East, and Southeast Asia.
• Migration is thus an important symptom of social change in society.

How is the Phenomenon of Migration Recorded?

• There are three important sources of information on migration in a country. These are national census, population registers, and sample surveys. In India, the most important sources of data on internal migration are the national census and sample surveys.
• In the Census of India migration is enumerated on two bases:
  • Place of birth, if the place of birth is different from the place of enumeration (known as lifetime migrant);
  • Place of residence, if the place of the last residence is different from the place of enumer

Observing Migration Trends in the Census

• A few facts pertaining to the internal migration (within the country) and international migration (out of the country and into the country from other countries) are presented in this section.
• Four streams of the internal migration
  • Rural to rural (R-R);
  • Rural to urban (R-U);
  • Urban to urban (U-U);
  • Urban to rural (U-R)
• Under the internal migration, four streams are identified:
• In India, during 2001, out of 315 million migrants, enumerated on the basis of the last residence, 98 million had changed their place of residence in the last ten years. Out of these, 81 million were intra-state migrants. The stream was dominated by female migrants of short distance rural to rural migration in both types of migration. Most of these were migrants related to  While men dominate the rural to the urban stream of inter-state migration due to economic reasons.
• The socio-economic development of the states is considerably higher and that attracts people. Another factor is that because of better education levels and awareness, local residents of these areas get drawn towards better economic opportunities. This vacuum that gets created gets filled up by people from outside. These developed areas face a crisis of manpower, especially for low-skilled jobs, which leads to migration.

According to the International Migration Stock report (released by the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs), India with 17.5 million international migrants has emerged as the top source of international migrants, constituting 6.4% of the world’s total migrant population.

Factors Responsible for Migration
Migration is a global phenomenon caused not only by economic factors but many other factors like social, political, cultural, environmental, health, education are included under the broader classification of Push and Pull factors of migration:

• Push factors are those associated with the area of origin.
• Poor economic activity and lack of job opportunities are also strong push factors for migration. Other strong push factors include race and discriminating cultures, political intolerance, and persecution of people who question the status quo.
• Pull factors are those that are associated with the area of destination.
• Better economic opportunities, more jobs, and the promise of a better life often pull people into new locations.