Population | Geography for UPSC CSE PDF Download

Introduction

The most important resource of a nation is its people. India's population is very large in absolute terms and has major implications for development, resource use and public policy.

• Population (2020): India's population was estimated at 138.26 crore (UN data, 2020).
• Share of world population: India accounts for about 17.7% of the global population and ranks second in the list of countries by population size.
• Projected growth: United Nations projections indicate India may add roughly 273 million people by 2050 (World Population Prospects, 2019).
• Large population is often said to increase pressure on limited natural and social resources and is linked with several socio-economic challenges.
• Decadal growth (2001-2011): India's decadal growth rate was 17.64%, down from 21.54% in 1991-2001.
• India's population is larger than the combined population of North America, South America and Australia.
• Many Indian states individually have populations comparable to those of medium and large countries.

Important Definitions and Basic Measures

• Population distribution: The spatial pattern of where people live across a country or region. India shows a highly uneven pattern of population distribution.
• Population density: Number of persons per unit area (commonly per square kilometre). India's national (crude) population density was 382 persons per sq. km (Census 2011).
• Physiological density and agricultural density: These are finer measures of human-land ratio and are more revealing of pressure on cultivable land than crude density, especially for an agrarian country like India.
• Ten states (Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Gujarat) together account for about 76% of India's total population.
• Some regions (e.g. Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh) are very densely populated; mountain and desert regions (e.g. Ladakh, western Rajasthan) have very low densities.
• India's density rose from 117 persons/sq. km in 1951 to 382 persons/sq. km in 2011, an increase of more than 200 persons/sq. km over about six decades.
• Uneven population distribution reflects close links between population and physical, socio-economic and historical factors.

Distribution of Population in India

General pattern

• Population is concentrated in river plains, coastal lowlands and fertile agricultural regions.
• Large urban agglomerations and industrial belts show high population concentration due to economic opportunities and infrastructure.
• Mountainous, arid and heavily forested tracts are sparsely populated.

Factors influencing distribution

• Physical factors
• Socio-economic factors
• Historical factors

Physical factors

Climate

• Harsh climates (extreme heat, cold, aridity) discourage dense settlement.
• Example: Western Rajasthan's arid climate leads to low density.
• Coastal regions with moderate climate often sustain dense settlement (coast from Gujarat to West Bengal).

Terrain

• Plains with gentle relief favour agriculture, transport and settlement; rugged terrain and hills usually have lower densities.
• Example: North Indian Plains, deltas and coastal plains have higher population shares than plateaus and highlands.

Availability of water

• Areas with perennial rivers, irrigation and groundwater support higher densities.
• Example: Irrigation projects such as the Indira Gandhi Canal have increased settlement potential in parts of western Rajasthan.

Mineral resources

• Mineral wealth attracts industries and workers even in rugged terrain.
• Example: Mineral-rich plateaus in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha have significant populations despite relief.

Socio-economic factors

Fertile farmland

• Regions with fertile soils can sustain larger rural populations engaged in agriculture; this explains high densities in many plains.

Transport and communication

• Plains allow easier road, rail and urban infrastructure development, concentrating population along corridors and nodes.
• Hilly regions face transport constraints that limit settlement density.

Industrialisation and urbanisation

• Industrial centres and urban employment attract rural migrants; cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Jaipur have high concentrations of population.

Historical factors

• Areas with long histories of settlement-river plains and coasts-retain higher population concentration because of early development of agriculture, transport and trade.
• Past settlement patterns and infrastructure investments have enduring effects on present distribution.

Growth of Population

• Definition: Growth of population is the change in the number of people living in a particular area between two points in time, usually expressed as a percentage.
• Population change results from births, deaths and net migration; trends over the last century reflect changes in all three components.

• Four distinct historical phases of population growth are commonly identified over the last century in India and globally (see schematic):
  

Regional Variation in Population Growth

• States such as Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Puducherry and Goa showed lower decadal growth (not exceeding about 20%) in 1991-2001.
• During 2001-2011, most states and union territories recorded lower growth than in the previous decade.
• Decadal growth rates of the six most populous states (Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh) fell in 2001-2011 compared to 1991-2001.
  

Causes of Declining Growth Rate

• India initiated a national family planning programme in 1952 to reduce birth rates and stabilise population consistent with national development.
• Improved awareness, rising standards of living and expansion of education have contributed to lower fertility.
• Population policies that emphasise health, choice and development (rather than coercion) have helped reduce growth.

Demographic Transition

• Demographic Transition Theory (DTT) describes how population dynamics change as societies move from agrarian, high-mortality/high-fertility regimes to urban, industrial, low-mortality/low-fertility regimes.
• Stages: early (high birth and death rates, slow growth), transitional (death rates fall, birth rates remain high → rapid growth), late transition (birth rates decline → growth slows) and post-transition (low birth and death rates → stable or slow-growing population).
• Mortality declines early due to public health, sanitation and medical improvements; fertility declines later as education, urbanisation and economic changes reduce desired family size.
• Different countries and regions may be at different stages of the demographic cycle.

New National Population Policy (2000)

• The National Population Policy (2000) affirmed the Government's commitment to reproductive health services based on voluntary consent.
• The policy provided a framework to meet reproductive and child health needs over the next decade and set long-term goals, including population stabilization targets.
• Goals stated in the policy and related documents included: achieving zero population growth at some point in the future (policy target year often cited as 2045), reducing infant mortality, and lowering birth rates through improved health services and informed choice.
• The policy emphasised population and development linkages rather than punitive measures.
• Population Stabilization Fund (2005) was proposed/established as an autonomous mechanism to support awareness, community participation and service delivery.

The Population Stabilization Fund is associated with schemes that promote delayed marriage, birth spacing and safe sterilization services. Two schemes associated with family planning outreach are:

• Prerna Scheme - counselling to encourage delayed marriage and childbirth and to promote spacing; community health workers (e.g. ASHA) provide counselling and contraceptives.
• Santushti Scheme - a public-private partnership approach for providing sterilisation services.

A National Commission on Population chaired by the Prime Minister and including chief ministers, union ministers, NGOs and experts was envisaged to oversee implementation.

Critical Assessment of India's Population Policy

• Although India's policies and programmes have achieved reductions in fertility and mortality, overall targets of population stabilisation remain unmet and India is still the world's second most populous country.
• Shortcomings include an overemphasis on contraception and sterilization at times, inadequate attention to broader development goals such as poverty alleviation, education and women's empowerment, and weak public infrastructure and staffing in health programmes.
• Coercive measures, notably the period during the Emergency (1976-77), created public resentment and damaged programme credibility.

Implications of Population Growth

• Population growth is not uniform; it is concentrated among economically weaker sections. For example, recent surveys show fertility differences across wealth quintiles: the poorest quintile has higher fertility than the richest.
• High growth among the poor complicates eradication of poverty, hunger, malnutrition and provision of quality health and education (SDGs 1-4).
• Employment challenge: India produces millions of new job seekers each year but creates far fewer formal jobs, producing a large gap between job seekers and available employment and risking the transformation of a potential demographic dividend into a demographic challenge.
• Given limited land area (India's land area is only about 35-40% of China's), sustained rapid population growth raises concerns about sustainability of natural resource use and living standards.

Population Composition

Rural-urban composition

• According to World Bank and UN sources, India's urban population accounts for roughly one-third of the total (around 34%), with projections that urbanisation will continue to rise to over 50% by mid-century.
• India had 640,867 villages in Census 2011, of which 597,608 (93.2%) were inhabited.
• Rural-urban migration patterns influence population distribution within states and between regions; urban growth is particularly strong along transport corridors, industrial belts and metropolitan regions.
• States such as Bihar and Sikkim have high rural population shares; Goa and Maharashtra have greater urban proportions.

Rural-urban migration corridors

• Notable corridors of urban attraction include routes and industrial clusters in the North Indian Plains and concentrations around Kolkata, Mumbai, Bengaluru-Mysuru, Madurai-Coimbatore, Ahmedabad-Surat, Delhi-Kanpur and Ludhiana-Jalandhar.

Linguistic composition

• India is linguistically diverse; raw returns of mother tongues in Census 2011 totalled thousands, though about 71% of the population reported one of the 22 scheduled languages as their mother tongue.
• Hindi has the largest number of speakers among scheduled languages.
• Linguistic boundaries are often diffuse and overlapping rather than sharply demarcated.

Religious composition

• India's population is divided among several major religious communities-Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist and Jain-whose proportions vary regionally and are tabulated in census data.
  

Occupational composition

• By economic status, population is classified into:
• Main workers: Persons who worked for at least 183 days (six months) in a year.
• Marginal workers: Persons who worked for less than 183 days in a year.
• Non-workers: Persons not engaged in economic activity (dependent population).
• Periodic Labour Force Survey 2018-19 indicated that about 37.5% of India's population were workers (main + marginal), leaving about ~60% classified as non-workers-reflecting a large dependent population and underemployment.
• Work participation varies across states; economic development patterns influence participation rates and sectoral composition.
• Male workers outnumber female workers in primary, secondary and tertiary sectors; however female participation is relatively higher in agriculture (primary sector) though recent gains have been seen in secondary and tertiary sectors in some areas.
• The share of workforce in agriculture has declined over recent decades (for example, from about 58.2% in 2001 to 54.6% in 2011), while secondary and tertiary sectors have grown.

Sex ratio and child sex ratio

• Sex ratio: Number of females per 1,000 males.
• According to Census 2011, the sex ratio in India was 940 (up from 933 in 2001).
• Kerala had the highest state sex ratio (female majority) at 1,084, while Haryana had one of the lowest at 879.
• Among Union Territories, Puducherry recorded 1,037 while Daman and Diu recorded 618.
• Some states (Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar, Gujarat) showed declines in sex ratio compared to the previous census.
• Child sex ratio (females per 1,000 males in age group 0-6 years): Census 2011 recorded a child sex ratio of 918, which was a historically low figure at that time; trends in different states vary with some showing improvement.

Tribes and racial groups

• Scheduled Tribes account for a significant proportion of India's population; tribal population forms about 8.6% of the total and tribal groups are present in almost all states and union territories except some small exceptions.
• Tribal concentrations are highest in Central India, the North-East and parts of South India.
• Features often associated with tribal groups include distinctive culture, relative geographical isolation, dependence on traditional livelihoods, lower levels of literacy and development.

Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs)

• A category of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) was introduced to identify tribal communities that are more vulnerable. The Dhebar Commission (1973) referred to the most vulnerable as Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs); the term PVTG was later used.
• Initially 52 groups were identified and subsequently more groups were added to total around 75 PVTGs out of the larger set of Scheduled Tribes.
• PVTGs typically have small and often stagnant or declining populations, relative isolation, limited technology, absence of written language and low literacy.
• Odisha is among the states with a relatively large number of PVTGs.
  

Women's Empowerment and Population

• Women's economic and social empowerment is central to family planning, reproductive health and population stabilisation.
• Poverty, illiteracy, early marriage and low status of women reduce access to and use of family planning and lead to higher fertility and maternal/child health risks.
• Educated women are more likely to delay marriage and childbearing, have fewer children and participate in the workforce; education has a transformative effect on fertility and family welfare.
• Barriers to contraception include misinformation about side-effects, social and male opposition, and lack of access to quality services; addressing these requires health counselling, male engagement and improved service delivery.
• Sensitising boys and men to gender equality and women's rights is crucial for reducing gender-based inequalities and improving uptake of family planning.

Demographic Dividend

• Definition (UNFPA): Demographic dividend refers to the potential economic growth that can result when the share of the working-age population (typically 15-64 years) is larger relative to the dependent population (children and elderly).
• India is expected to have a large working-age population share in coming decades; projections indicate the working-age cohort may peak around the mid-2030s with about 65% of the population in working ages, creating an opportunity for accelerated growth if matched with jobs and human capital investment.

Challenges associated with realising the dividend

• Asymmetric demography: Growth in working-age population is concentrated in poorer states; without local job creation, migration and regional inequality may increase.
• Skill gaps: Many future jobs will require higher skills; low human capital limits employability.
• Low human development: India's ranking on human development measures indicates the need for better health and education to make the workforce productive.
• Informal economy: A large informal sector can limit job quality, security and productivity gains.
• Jobless growth: Technological change, de-industrialisation or insufficient job creation could lead to growth without adequate employment; labour force participation among key age groups (e.g. 15-59 years) remains a policy concern.

Policy Actions: What needs to be done

• Build human capital: Invest in health, education and skills to increase productivity and employability.
• Skill development: Expand vocational training and link training to industry needs; the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) is an institutional response aiming to scale skill training.
• Improve education: Strengthen primary, secondary and higher education and increase academic-industry collaboration to align learning with labour market needs; financing mechanisms such as the Higher Education Finance Agency (HEFA) support expansion.
• Strengthen health: Expand access to primary and reproductive healthcare, strengthen schemes such as Ayushman Bharat, NHPS and Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) to improve nutrition, maternal and child health.
• Create jobs: Focus on policies that generate large-scale employment-promote entrepreneurship, small and medium enterprises, manufacturing and services. India needs to create millions of jobs annually to absorb new entrants into the labour force.
• Manage urbanisation: Plan urban infrastructure and services to accommodate migrant workers and new urban dwellers with access to housing, transport, health and sanitation.

Suggestive Measures for Population Control

Measures can be social, economic and administrative; they should be rights-based, development-oriented and focused on expanding choices and improving welfare.

Social measures

1. Minimum age of marriage: Enforce legal minimum marriage ages and publicise the benefits of delaying marriage and childbearing.
2. Raise the status of women: Promote education, employment opportunities and legal protections for women.
3. Spread of education: Encourage universal education; educated individuals tend to delay marriage and prefer smaller families.
4. Adoption: Promote adoption as an option for couples unable to have children.
5. Change social outlook: Reduce stigma towards childless women and promote acceptance of diverse family choices.
6. Social security: Expand social protection so families do not rely on many children as old-age security.

Economic measures

1. More employment opportunities: Expand rural and urban employment avenues to reduce disguised unemployment and improve incomes.
2. Develop agriculture and industry: Strengthen farm incomes and promote industrial growth to create jobs and raise living standards.
3. Improve standard of living: Higher living standards are associated with lower fertility preferences.
4. Encourage urbanisation: Well-planned urbanisation is associated with lower fertility and greater access to services.

Other measures

1. Late marriage: Encourage later marriage to shorten the reproductive span of women and reduce total fertility.
2. Family planning: Provide a wide basket of affordable contraceptive choices, high-quality counselling and services so couples can choose family size.
3. Publicity: Use mass and local media to communicate benefits of planned families and available services.
4. Incentives: Consider non-coercive incentives (monetary or service-based) to encourage adoption of small-family norms among workers and communities.
5. Women's employment: Improve female labour force participation by addressing education, skills, childcare, safety and formal employment opportunities; a large share of women currently work in the informal sector.

Mission Parivar Vikas

• The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare launched Mission Parivar Vikas in 145 high-focus districts with the highest total fertility rates (TFR) to accelerate access to family planning choices within a rights-based framework.
• These districts are concentrated in seven high-TFR states: Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Assam, which together constitute a large share of the country's population.
• Key focus areas include improving access to contraceptives, ensuring commodity security, capacity building of service providers, demand generation and close monitoring of implementation.

Population Structure: Age-Sex Pyramid

• The age-sex structure shows the number of females and males in specific age groups and is commonly represented by a population pyramid.
• Five-year age groups are shown on the vertical axis; the width of horizontal bars indicates the population size in each group for males and females.
• The pyramid's shape evolves with changes in fertility, mortality and migration:
• Expanding population: A broad base indicates high fertility and a young population (triangular shape), typical of less developed populations.
• Constant population: A bell-shaped pyramid indicates near-equal birth and death rates and slow growth.
• Declining population: A narrow base indicates low fertility and potential population decline or ageing.

Theories of Population

Malthus' theory of population growth

• Thomas Malthus argued that population tends to grow geometrically while food supply grows arithmetically, creating the possibility of shortages.
• He suggested that positive checks (famines, wars, epidemics) and preventive checks (later marriage, abstinence) act to limit population.
• According to Malthus, unchecked population growth would outstrip food supply, leading to suffering and higher mortality which would restore balance.

Marx's critique of Malthus

• Karl Marx rejected Malthus's naturalistic explanation and argued that poverty and starvation are consequences of the social and economic organisation of society-specifically, unequal distribution of wealth under capitalism-rather than a simple overpopulation problem.
• Marx emphasised structural economic causes and the role of social policies in addressing deprivation.

Reports and International Agencies

State of World Population 2019 (UNFPA)

• Published by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
• India accounted for over one-sixth of the world's population in 2019 (about 1.37 billion of 7.71 billion).
• India's population growth rate between 2010 and 2019 was around 2% per year in past statements compared with the world average of 1.2% (figures vary by reference year and definition).
• Life expectancy at birth in India was reported as lower than the global average in that report period.
• India's maternal mortality ratio has declined considerably over recent decades (for example, from higher levels in the 1990s to lower values by 2015), and fertility has been falling towards replacement levels in many states.

World Population Prospects 2019 (UN)

• The UN's World Population Prospects 2019 projected that India could surpass China as the world's most populous country around the late 2020s.
• India was projected to add nearly 273 million people between 2019 and 2050.
• By 2050, the share of older persons (65+) is expected to rise substantially, while the under-five share will fall.
• Projections underline substantial demographic change-ageing in the long term and a large working-age cohort in the medium term-both with policy implications for health, education and employment.

Policy Initiatives and Institutions

NITI Aayog consultation

• NITI Aayog has organised national consultations on "population stabilization" to address gaps in family planning programmes and to develop constructive recommendations focusing on adolescents and youth, inter-departmental convergence, demand generation and quality of care.
• Expected recommendations include increasing contraceptive choices, addressing social determinants such as age at marriage and sex-selective practices, strengthening quality of care and counselling, increasing budgetary allocations for family planning, investing in behaviour-change communication and treating family planning as a national priority.

Jansankhya Sthirata Kosh (JSK)

• JSK is an autonomous society under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare established with government grant (initial corpus reported as Rs. 100 crore) and with the objective of promoting population stabilisation.
• JSK implements schemes such as the Prerna Scheme (to encourage delayed marriage, childbirth and spacing), Santushti Scheme (public-private partnership for sterilisation services) and a national helpline for family planning information.
• JSK's mandate includes mobilizing resources, promoting awareness, facilitating community participation and supporting family planning services with financial and technical inputs.

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

• UNFPA is the UN's sexual and reproductive health agency, established as a trust fund in 1967 and operational from 1969; the name was changed to United Nations Population Fund in 1987 though the abbreviation UNFPA is retained.
• UNFPA works on reproductive health, gender equality and population data as part of the global development agenda and supports national efforts to meet Sustainable Development Goals (health, education, gender equality).
• UNFPA is funded through voluntary contributions from governments, organisations and donors rather than through the UN regular budget.

Conclusion

• India's population dynamics-size, distribution, composition and growth-have major implications for development planning, resource management and social policy.
• Successful management of demographic change requires integrated strategies: universal education, women's empowerment, robust health and family planning services, skill development, job creation and well-planned urbanisation.
• With appropriate policies and investments in human capital, India can convert the potential demographic dividend into sustained inclusive development while working towards long-term population stabilisation.