Every NCERT book that matters for UPSC — open a book, then a chapter. Learn each chapter's concepts, then how UPSC tests them — with diagrams, flowcharts and the past questions to attempt.
In simple wordsA school principal planning next year needs to know how many children will join, how many will leave, how many are girls, and how many need a bus from the village. A country plans the same way — and the numbers also reveal how the society values its daughters, its old people and its villages.
Chapter 1 promised that this chapter would ask how sociologists and demographers study population, which aspects are socially significant, and whether a large population is only an obstacle to development. The answers run through seven sections: theories and concepts, size and growth, age structure, the declining sex ratio, literacy, rural–urban differences and population policy. Throughout, the sociologist's question is not only how many but why — which social norms, inequalities and choices lie behind the numbers.
Pairs with the live page India: People and Economy, Chapter 1 Population (Census distribution, density, growth phases, religion, language, occupations) and Fundamentals of Human Geography, Chapter 2 (world population, demographic transition). This chapter adds the sociology: Malthus and his critics, the dividend debate, son preference, migration and policy.
Links: Chapter 3 (family and kinship behind fertility and son preference); Chapter 5 (gender, caste and tribe inequalities in literacy); Indian Economic Development, Chapter 4 (human capital); Political Theory, Chapter 3 (gender equality); Politics in India since Independence, Chapter 6 (the Emergency).
UPSC: Prelims has asked about the sex ratio (1986, 1988, 1997, 1999), demographic transition (1993, 2012), the demographic dividend (2011, 2013), population policy (2005, 2008), IMR (2009) and TFR (2024). GS1 asks about adverse sex ratios in prosperous regions (2014), tribal versus SC sex ratios (2015), population and poverty (2015), women's empowerment and population (2019), the demographic winter (2024) and the challenges of demographic transition (2026).
Word
What it means here
Demography
The systematic study of population (Greek demos, people + graphein, describe)
Census
A complete count of the people of a territory, with their details; in India every ten years
Birth rate / death rate
Live births / deaths per 1,000 population in a year (‘crude’ rates)
Rate of natural increase
Birth rate minus death rate — the growth rate without migration
Replacement level
The growth needed for each generation to replace the one dying out
Fertility rate
Live births per 1,000 women aged 15–49
Total fertility rate (TFR)
Average number of children a woman would bear over her lifetime at current rates
Infant mortality rate
Deaths of babies under one year per 1,000 live births
Maternal mortality rate
Women dying in childbirth per 1,00,000 live births
Life expectancy
Estimated years an average person is expected to live
Sex ratio / child sex ratio
Females per 1,000 males — all ages / aged 0–6
Dependency ratio
Population under 15 and over 64 ÷ population aged 15–64
Demographic dividend
Growth that a rising share of working-age people can bring
Population momentum
Continued growth because many women are of reproductive age, even as each has fewer children
Reading NCERT's chapter-opening photographs (pages 5 and 7)Page 5: a black-and-white collage of faces and scenes — a woman selling earthen pots, a turbaned elderly man, a bearded man, a child, an old woman, a young man with a bag, a crowd at an open-air gathering, cars and a vendor's cart (QR code 12111CH02). Page 7: a full-page montage of crowds — onlookers in a city street, a vast fairground crowd with camels and carts, an audience of women and children watching a costumed performer under festoons, and a city road at night jammed with cars and a bus. The point: ‘population’ is not an abstraction but people — of every age, sex, region and setting — and its sheer density is a social fact in itself.
At a glance — the six ideas to carry away
Demography = study of population; formal (measurement) vs social demography (causes and consequences). Census: first counts 1867–72, regular since 1881; 2011 latest.
Demographic transition: high–high → deaths fall first (population explosion) → low–low; India's transition is incomplete. 1921 is the turning point (‘Great Divide’).
Age structure: under-15 share 42% (1971) → 29% (2011); a demographic dividend needs education and jobs — the real ratio is non-workers to workers.
Sex ratio 972 (1901) → 927 (1991) → 943 (2011); child sex ratio 976 (1961) → 919 (2011), lowest in prosperous north-western States — son preference and sex selection; PCPNDT Act; Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao.
Literacy 18.3% (1951) → 73.0% (2011), gender gap 16.3 points; urban 10.8% (1901) → 31.2% (2011); policy: 1952 first in the world, Emergency coercion, NPP 2000, NHP 2017.
1. What demography is, and why sociology needs it
In simple wordsOne person falling ill is a private matter. If every winter a thousand more people die in one district than in the next, something social is going on — water, poverty, hospitals. Demography gives sociology those patterns.
Demography — from the Greek demos (people) and graphein (describe) — is the systematic study of population: changes in its size; patterns of births, deaths and migration; and its structure and composition, such as the proportions of women, men and age groups. All demographic studies rest on counting: the census or the survey, systematically collecting data on people in a specified territory. Formal demography is quantitative, with mathematical methods to measure and forecast population change; social demography (population studies) asks about the wider social, economic and political causes and consequences of population structures, on the view that social processes regulate demographic ones.
Two kinds of demography — and why aggregate rates are social facts.
Demography mattered to the birth of sociology. In late eighteenth-century Europe two things happened together: the rise of the nation-state and the beginnings of modern statistics. The expanding state — running public health, policing, agriculture and industry policy, taxation and cities — needed regular social statistics. The American census of 1790 was probably the first modern census; Europe followed in the early 1800s. In India, the British government conducted censuses between 1867 and 1872, and regular decennial censuses have been held since 1881; independent India has held seven since 1951, the latest in 2011. Such statistics also gave sociology a strong argument: a death rate is built from individual deaths but is itself a social phenomenon needing social explanation — as Émile Durkheim showed by explaining differences in suicide rates between countries through social causes.
Counting people: from the first modern census to India's next one.
NCERT details to read carefully
NCERT says China ‘does not conduct regular censuses’. That is wrong today: China has held a national census every ten years since 1990 (1990, 2000, 2010, 2020) (Beyond NCERT). The safe exam line: India's census is one of the world's largest counting exercises.
NCERT: censuses 1867–72, regular from 1881. The live Geography page uses the usual exam pair — 1872 first, 1881 first complete (synchronous). They agree: the 1867–72 counts ended in the 1872 census.
Census 2011 was the 15th since 1872 and the 7th since Independence. The next census has a reference date of 1 March 2027 (Beyond NCERT).
Beyond NCERT — data sources a sociologist uses
Census of India (Registrar General and Census Commissioner, under the Census Act, 1948): every ten years, the whole population.
Sample Registration System (SRS): annual estimates of birth, death and infant mortality rates and TFR — the source of NCERT's 2016 TFRs and 2020 birth rates.
National Family Health Survey (NFHS): large sample surveys (NFHS-5, 2019–21) on fertility, health and gender. Survey figures are not directly comparable with Census figures.
Durkheim's Suicide was published in 1897.
2. Malthus and his critics
In simple wordsImagine a family whose number of mouths doubles every generation, while the farm's harvest only adds one more sack each time. Sooner or later there is not enough to eat. That was Malthus's fear for the whole of humanity.
The English political economist Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) set out a pessimistic theory in his Essay on Population (1798). Human populations, he argued, grow much faster than the means of subsistence — food, and also clothing and other farm-based goods. Population rises in geometric progression (2, 4, 8, 16, 32) while agricultural production rises only in arithmetic progression (2, 4, 6, 8, 10). So the only route to prosperity is to control population. Humanity can do so voluntarily only to a limited extent, through preventive checks — postponing marriage, abstinence, celibacy — so Malthus believed positive checks — famines and diseases — were inevitable: nature's way of balancing food and people.
Malthus's two progressions, and his two kinds of check.
⤵ Malthus's argument, step by step
Population grows geometrically2, 4, 8, 16, 32 …
Food grows arithmetically2, 4, 6, 8, 10 …
A widening gaphumanity condemned to poverty unless numbers are controlled
Preventive checks are weaklate marriage, abstinence, celibacy — limited human restraint
Positive checks followfamine and disease restore the balance — ‘inevitable’
The theory was influential, but challenged. Some argued that economic growth could outstrip population growth. The most effective refutation was Europe's own history: from the late nineteenth century birth rates fell and epidemics were controlled, and by the 1920s the change was dramatic; food production and living standards kept rising despite rapid population growth. Liberal and Marxist critics also rejected Malthus's claim that population growth causes poverty: poverty and starvation, they argued, come from the unequal distribution of economic resources — an unjust system lets a privileged minority live in luxury while the majority stays poor.
Reading NCERT Box 2.1 — Malthus in his own words, and his life (page 9)The box quotes a long passage from the 1798 Essay: the power of population so exceeds the earth's power to produce food that premature death must come in some form — first through human vices, then epidemics and plague, and finally famine, which ‘levels’ population with the world's food. A side note says Malthus studied at Cambridge, trained as a Christian priest, and became Professor of History and Political Economy at the East India Company College, Haileybury, which trained officers for the Indian Civil Service. The point: the ‘positive checks’ are stated in their starkest form — and the theory was taught to the men who would govern famine-prone India.
Reading NCERT Activity 2.1 (page 10)Find out how agricultural productivity rose (one reason Malthus was proved wrong) and list other reasons. The point: Malthus treated food output as nearly fixed in its growth and human behaviour as unchanging; both assumptions failed. Answer in the in-text section.
Beyond NCERT
Malthus revised the Essay in later editions, giving more weight to ‘moral restraint’ (delayed marriage) as a preventive check.
Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines (1981), argued from the Bengal famine of 1943 that famines can occur without a fall in food output, through a collapse of entitlements — NCERT uses this in section 5. It is the modern form of the distribution critique.
‘Neo-Malthusian’ worries returned in the 1960s–70s; they shaped coercive policies in several countries, including India's Emergency drive (section 10).
3. The theory of demographic transition
In simple wordsWhen a village gets a clinic and clean water, fewer babies die almost at once. But families keep having five or six children for a while, as their parents did — habits change slower than medicine. In that gap, the village grows fast.
The theory of demographic transition links population growth to the level of economic development: every society, it holds, follows a typical pattern in three stages. In the first, an underdeveloped, technologically backward society has low growth because both birth and death rates are very high. In the last, a developed society again has low growth, because both rates are low. Between them comes a transitional stage of very high growth — the ‘population explosion’ — because death rates fall quickly through disease control, public health and better nutrition, while reproductive behaviour, formed in an era of poverty and high mortality, takes longer to adjust to longer lives and relative prosperity.
The three stages of the demographic transition (schematic).
⤵ Why the transition produces a ‘population explosion’
Stage 1: high births, high deathslittle net growth; large families offset high infant deaths
Deaths fall fastdisease control, public health, nutrition — imported or adopted quickly
Births fall slowlyfertility norms are socio-cultural and lag behind
Explosionthe gap between the two rates widens — very high growth
Stage 3: low births, low deathsprosperity, education and awareness lower family size
Western Europe went through this transition in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; less developed countries follow broadly similar patterns as they struggle to bring birth rates down in step with falling mortality. In India, NCERT says, the transition is not yet complete: mortality has fallen, but the birth rate has not fallen to the same extent.
Reading NCERT Box 2.4 — India's demographic transition (page 32)Population growth has been declining since 1991. The average number of children per woman fell from 3.8 in 1990 to 2.7 ‘today’ (citing a 2011 article). Yet population was projected to rise from 1.2 billion to about 1.6 billion by 2050 because of population momentum — a large cohort of women of reproductive age keeps numbers rising even as each has fewer children. From 1950 to 1990 the birth rate fell less steeply than the death rate; in the 1990s it fell more steeply, cutting annual growth to about 1.6% (Planning Commission, 2008). The point: India is moving towards the post-transition stage, but momentum keeps it growing for decades. These figures are dated — see the Beyond NCERT note below.
Beyond NCERT — where India stands now
The National Family Health Survey-5 (2019–21) put India's TFR at 2.0 — below the replacement level of about 2.1 — so the 2.7 in Box 2.4 is dated. Population still grows through momentum.
The UN estimated that India overtook China as the most populous country in April 2023 (UN DESA, World Population Prospects 2022); NCERT's ‘second most populous’ is dated.
The transition model is usually traced to Warren Thompson (1929) and Frank Notestein (1945). Critics note it is a description of Europe's path, not a law; some add a fourth stage of below-replacement fertility and shrinking population — the ‘demographic winter’ (GS1 2024).
Exam traps
Correct sequence: high birth, high death → high birth, low death → low birth, low death (UPSC 1993, 2012).
NCERT's model has three stages; the Geography book (and many textbooks) describe four or five. Use the number the question implies.
Growth is high in the middle stage, not the first.
4. Common concepts and indicators
In simple words‘Fifty children died in a town’ means little until you know whether the town has five thousand babies or fifty thousand. Demographers almost always divide one number by another — so places of different size can be compared.
Most demographic concepts are rates or ratios: a statistic for an area divided by a standard for comparison. The birth rate is live births per 1,000 population in a year; the death rate is deaths per 1,000; both depend on families reporting births and deaths. The rate of natural increase (growth rate) is the birth rate minus the death rate; when it is zero or very small the population has ‘stabilised’ at the replacement level. Some countries — NCERT names Japan, Russia, Italy and Eastern Europe — have fertility below replacement and negative growth.
Indicator
NCERT's definition
What it tells a sociologist
Fertility rate
live births per 1,000 women aged 15–49
a ‘crude’ rate — ignores age differences, so demographers also compute age-specific rates
Infant mortality rate
deaths before age one per 1,000 live births
high IMR and MMR are ‘unambiguous’ signs of backwardness and poverty
Maternal mortality rate
women dying in childbirth per 1,00,000 live births
falls with medical facilities, education, awareness and prosperity
Life expectancy
estimated years an average person will live, from age-specific death rates
rises with development and changes the age structure
Sex ratio
females per 1,000 males
nature produces about 943–952 girls per 1,000 boys, but girls resist infant disease better and women outlive men, so about 1,050 is normal — a low ratio signals social bias
Age structure
proportions of people in different age groups
shifts towards older groups with development — ‘ageing’
Dependency ratio
(under 15 + over 64) ÷ (15 to 64), as a percentage
rising: a burden for ageing societies; falling: a possible ‘demographic dividend’, but only temporary
Reading NCERT Activity 2.2 (page 11)Why is the birth rate slow to fall while the death rate falls fast? What shapes a couple's decision on family size? Ask elders why families once had more children. The point: deaths fall with technology the whole society accepts; births depend on decisions inside families, shaped by norms, old-age security, child survival, son preference and women's education. Answer in the in-text section.
Definitions to get exactly right
IMR = deaths under one year per 1,000 live births — not deaths within a month (that is neonatal mortality), and not per 100 (UPSC 2009 keyed ‘neither’).
Sex ratio in India = females per 1,000 males (UPSC 1988); many other countries use males per 100 females.
NCERT's ‘fertility rate’ is the general fertility rate. The TFR — used later in the chapter without definition — is the average number of children per woman over her reproductive life (UPSC 2024). Replacement TFR is about 2.1 (Beyond NCERT).
Strictly, deaths per 1,00,000 live births is the maternal mortality ratio; NCERT calls it a ‘rate’.
5. Size and growth of India's population
In simple wordsFor fifty years India's population crept up, held back by plague, famine and flu. Then the killers were tamed, but families stayed large — and the numbers raced ahead. Now families are shrinking, but unevenly from State to State.
India had 121 crore (1.21 billion) people in the 2011 Census. Growth has not always been high: between 1901 and 1951 the average annual rate never exceeded 1.33%, and between 1911 and 1921 it was negative (−0.03% a year) because of the influenza epidemic of 1918–19. After Independence growth rose to about 2.2% a year in 1961–81, and has declined since, though NCERT notes it remained among the higher rates in the developing world. In NCERT's Chart 1, the birth and death rates begin to diverge after 1921–31: before that both were high; afterwards the death rate fell sharply while the birth rate fell only slightly.
India's decadal growth, redrawn from NCERT Table 1.
Reading NCERT Table 1 and Chart 1 (page 13)Table 1 gives population (in millions) and growth for each census from 1901 (238) to 2011 (1,210): growth was 5.8% in the decade to 1911, −0.3% to 1921, about 11–14% from 1921 to 1951, peaking at 24.8% (1961–71) and 24.7% (1971–81), then easing to 17.7% (2001–11). Chart 1 plots birth and death rates per 1,000 from 1901–10 to 2017: both start in the 40s; around 1911–20 the death rate almost meets the birth rate; after 1921 the death rate drops steeply to single digits while the birth rate declines slowly to about 20 by 2017. The point: the widening gap after 1921 is the transition's ‘explosion’; its narrowing since the 1980s is the slowdown. Note: the table is titled ‘during the 20th century’ but runs to 2011.
Why deaths fell. The main causes were control of epidemics and famines. The great epidemics were fevers, plague, smallpox and cholera, and above all the 1918–19 influenza. Medical cures, mass vaccination and sanitation brought them under control, though malaria, tuberculosis, diarrhoea and dysentery still kill, Surat saw a small plague outbreak in September 1994, and dengue and chikungunya recur. Famines came from poverty and malnutrition in a rainfall-dependent environment, poor transport and communication, and inadequate state effort; but, as Amartya Sen and others showed, famines were not necessarily caused by a fall in food output — they were also a ‘failure of entitlements’, the inability to buy or otherwise obtain food. Better farm productivity (especially irrigation), communications and more vigorous state relief have drastically reduced famine deaths, though starvation deaths are still reported in backward regions; NCERT describes the MGNREGA as the latest initiative against rural hunger.
Reading NCERT Box 2.2 — The Global Influenza Pandemic of 1918–19 (page 14)Influenza, a virus of the upper respiratory tract, changes genetically so that existing vaccines may fail; three times in the last century such changes caused pandemics — the ‘Spanish Flu’ of 1918–19, and the ‘Asian’ (1957) and ‘Hong Kong’ (1968) influenzas. The 1918–19 pandemic is thought to have killed at least 40 million people, perhaps far more, about 2.5–5% of humanity, with a fifth of the world falling ill; examples are given from the United States, Britain, France, Alaska, southern Africa, Fiji and Western Samoa; in India an estimated 17 million died, about 5% of the population, and almost 22% of infected British Indian Army troops died. Troop movements in World War I sped its spread. The box ends by asking students to compare it with COVID-19 (2020–21). The point: one epidemic can erase a decade of population growth — exactly what Table 1 shows for 1911–21.
NCERT's influenza figures disagreePage 12 says the epidemic killed about 12.5 million people, or 5% of the population (citing Visaria and Visaria, 2003); page 14 and Box 2.2 say 170 lakh (17 million), also ‘about 5%’. NCERT itself adds that estimates vary. Safe exam line: ‘12–17 million deaths, about 5% of India's population’.
Why births fell slowly. The birth rate is a socio-cultural phenomenon and slow to change. Prosperity pulls it down: once infant mortality falls and education and awareness rise, family size falls. But fertility varies widely across States. In 2016, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal had TFRs of 1.7 each — below replacement — and Kerala too was below replacement, implying future decline; Bihar (3.3), Madhya Pradesh (2.8), Rajasthan (2.7) and Uttar Pradesh (3.1) remained high. By the SRS Statistical Report 2020, India's crude birth rate was 19.5 (rural 21.1, urban 16.1), highest in Bihar (25.5) and Uttar Pradesh (25.1). The Economic Survey 2018–19 projected that these two States would account for about half of India's population additions up to 2041, Uttar Pradesh alone about 22%.
Fertility by State, 2016 (NCERT's figures) against the replacement level.
Reading NCERT's map ‘India: Birth Rates 2020’ (page 16)An untitled, unnumbered map from Census of India data shading States in four classes of birth rate per 1,000: above 24.1 (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh), 20.1–24.0 (including Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Meghalaya), 16.1–20.0, and below 16.0 (much of the south, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal and parts of the north-east). The point: high fertility forms a north-central belt, low fertility a southern and peripheral ring. Note: the text says State fertility differences ‘can be seen in Chart 1 (on page 13)’ — Chart 1 shows only all-India birth and death rates; the State pattern is on this map.
Reading NCERT Chart 2 — Regional shares of projected population growth up to 2041 (page 17)A pie chart from the Economic Survey 2018–19: Uttar Pradesh and Bihar 28%; Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka 16%; Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh 15%; Maharashtra and Gujarat 13%; West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand 13%; remaining States 10%; Punjab, Haryana and Delhi 5%. The point: future growth is concentrated in the Hindi heartland. Note that the chart's 28% for Uttar Pradesh and Bihar does not match the text's ‘almost half’ for the same two States — the two may measure different things (share of growth versus additions); quote each with its source.
⤵ Why the birth rate falls slowly and unevenly
Child survival improvesfewer infant deaths — families need fewer births to ‘ensure’ surviving children
Education and awareness riseespecially women's schooling and age at marriage
Costs and benefits of children changeschooling costs rise; child labour and old-age dependence on sons decline
Family-size norms shiftslowly, through generations — a socio-cultural change
Regional gapssouthern States and Punjab below replacement; Bihar and Uttar Pradesh still high
6. Age structure and the demographic dividend
In simple wordsA household with three earning adults, two children and one grandparent is better placed than one with one earner and five dependents. A country with many working-age people has a similar chance — but only if those adults actually have work.
India has a very young population. Table 2 shows the under-15 share falling from its peak of 42% in 1971 to 29% in 2011; the 15–59 share rising from 53% to 63%; and the 60+ share small but rising. The next two decades bring most change at the ends: the 0–14 share falls about 11 points (34% in 2001 to 23% in 2026) and the 60+ share rises about 5 points (7% to about 12%). Regional variation is wide: Kerala is acquiring an age structure like developed countries, Uttar Pradesh has large young cohorts and few elderly, and India as a whole lies between.
India's age composition, 1961–2026, redrawn from NCERT Table 2.
Reading NCERT Table 2 (page 18)Percentage shares of 0–14, 15–59 and 60+ for 1961–2011 and a 2026 projection, based on the Technical Group on Population Projections (1996 and 2006) of the National Commission on Population; rows may not total 100 because of rounding. The point: the shrinking base and swelling middle — the age-structure side of the demographic transition.
NCERT's age figures disagree with each other
The text says the 60+ share rose ‘from 5% to 7%’ between 1971 and 2011, but Table 2 shows 8% in 2011. It also calls the 15–59 rise from 53% to 63% ‘slight’ — it is 10 points.
Box 2.3 says ‘a third’ of Indians were under 15 in 2011, but Table 2 gives 29%. Box 2.3 is adapted from a 2006 article that used projections. For exams, use 29% (2011) from the table; ‘about 30%’ is safe.
The dependency ratio is defined on 15–64, but Table 2's working group is 15–59 — do not compute one from the other.
Reading NCERT Chart 3 — Age-group pyramids, 1961, 1981, 2001 and 2026 — and its Exercise (pages 19–21)Four population pyramids — males on the left, females on the right, five-year age groups from 0–4 at the bottom to 80+ at the top. 1961 and 1981 are broad-based triangles widest at 0–4 and 5–9; 2001 begins to narrow at the base; 2026 (a projection) has a bulge in the young-adult and middle ages and a wider top. The Exercise explains how to read them: falling births narrow the base, longer lives widen the top, and the middle ‘bulge’ is the demographic dividend; it asks where the 1961 newborns appear in later pyramids, where the widest part lies, and what the shape might be in 2051 and 3001. The point: a pyramid is a moving picture of cohorts — each generation climbs it. Answers in the in-text section.
Reading NCERT Chart 4 — Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, 2026 (page 22)Two projected pyramids from the Technical Group (2006). Uttar Pradesh is still a broad-based pyramid, widest at the youngest ages. Kerala is almost a column, widest around 40–49, with a narrow base and a large elderly top. The point: two States of one country stand at different stages of the transition — one with a coming dividend, the other already ageing.
The demographic dividend. A young age structure is thought to be an advantage — like East Asia's earlier and Ireland's at the time NCERT wrote — because a large working-age generation has a relatively small older generation to support. But nothing about it is automatic. It must be consciously exploited through policy. A falling dependency ratio creates the potential for growth; it becomes real growth only if the growing working-age group is educated and employed. Uneducated new workers stay unproductive; unemployed ones become dependents. Hence NCERT's key point: the real problem lies in measuring dependency by age (non-working-age ÷ working-age) rather than by work (non-workers ÷ workers); unemployment and underemployment make the difference — and explain why some countries reap the dividend and others do not.
The dependency ratio and India's ‘window of opportunity’ (NCERT Box 2.3).
Reading NCERT Box 2.3 — Does the changing age structure offer a ‘demographic dividend’ for India? (pages 23–24)Adapted from an article by C.P. Chandrasekhar (Frontline, January 2006). India is among the world's youngest countries; in 2020 the average Indian was to be about 29 years old against 37 in China and the US, 45 in Western Europe and 48 in Japan. The age-based dependency ratio fell from 79 (1970) to 64 (2005) and was projected to reach 48 in 2025 before rising to 50 by 2050 as the elderly share grows. But employment growth for 15–30-year-old men fell from about 2.4% a year (1987–94) to 0.7% for rural and 0.3% for urban men (1994–2004). The point: the window is real but temporary, and market forces alone will not convert it into a dividend.
⤵ Dividend or burden? How the age structure plays out
Birth rate fallsfewer children per working adult
Working-age share swellsthe ‘bulge’ — the age-based dependency ratio falls
Education, skills, jobsworkers are productive earners
Dividendsavings, investment, growth
Low skills, joblessnessworkers stay dependents
Missed windowfrustration, migration, informal work
Ageing followsthe bulge grows old; dependency rises again (Kerala first)
Reading NCERT Activity 2.3 (page 24)Does the age structure affect relations between generations — could a high dependency ratio create tension between old and young, or stronger bonds? The point: demographic change reaches inside families — care of the elderly, inheritance, migration of the young. Answer in the in-text section.
Beyond NCERT — ageing
Census 2011 counted about 10.4 crore people aged 60 and above (8.6%) — consistent with Table 2's 8%.
The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 makes children and heirs legally responsible for maintaining elderly parents — a legal response to the weakening of family care that ageing and migration bring (GS1 2013 asked about globalisation and the aged).
7. The declining sex ratio
In simple wordsIf, in a hundred schools, every class has noticeably fewer girls than boys, it is not chance. Something is happening before birth or in the first years of life — and it is happening most in the richer districts.
The sex ratio is a key indicator of gender balance. Worldwide it is usually slightly in favour of females, but India's has declined for over a century (Table 3): from 972 in 1901 to 933 in 2001, with an all-time low of 927 in 1991 after 941 in 1961. The 2011 Census showed a rise to 943. What alarms demographers, policymakers and activists more is the child sex ratio (0–6 years), computed since 1961. It was usually well above the overall ratio but has fallen sharply: in 1991–2001 the overall ratio posted its highest rise (927 to 933) while the child ratio plunged from 945 to 927, falling below the overall ratio for the first time; in 2011 it fell again, to 919.
Overall and child sex ratios, redrawn from NCERT Table 3.
Reading NCERT Table 3 — The declining sex ratio in India, 1901–2011 (page 25)Overall sex ratio and decadal change for every census from 1901, and the child (0–6) ratio from 1961: 976, 964, 962, 945, 927, 919. The steepest falls in the child ratio are −17 (1991) and −18 (2001). The point: the overall ratio has begun to recover while the child ratio keeps falling — so the problem is concentrated at and before birth.
The 2011 child sex ratio: NCERT's text vs its table
Text: the child sex ratio ‘decreased by 13 points’ to 919. Table 3: 927 → 919 is −8.
The 13-point fall matches the provisional 2011 figure of 914; the final Census figure was 918, which the live Geography page uses (Beyond NCERT). Exams accept the NCERT table's 919 or the final 918; avoid ‘13 points’.
Regional pattern. Nine States and Union Territories had a child sex ratio under 900; NCERT names Haryana as the worst, followed by Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Chandigarh, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh, Daman and Diu, Himachal Pradesh, Lakshadweep and Madhya Pradesh were under 925; large States such as West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka were above the national average but below 970. Even Kerala stood at 964; the highest, 972, was Arunachal Pradesh.
Reading NCERT Map 2 — Child sex ratios across States, 2011 (page 26)A choropleth in five classes: below 875 (Haryana, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir), 876–900 (including Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Delhi, Uttarakhand), 901–925 (Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh), 926–950 (most of the south and east — Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu) and 951 and above (Kerala, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and most of the north-east). The point: the lowest ratios form a north-western block of relatively prosperous States; the highest are in tribal and north-eastern States and Kerala.
Haryana's figureNCERT gives Haryana's child sex ratio as 793, ‘the only state below 800’. The 2011 Census figure for Haryana was 834 (830 in the provisional count) — still the lowest of any State (Beyond NCERT). 793 does not match the 2011 Census; treat it as an error and remember the ranking — Haryana lowest, then Punjab — rather than the number.
Why? The one health factor that affects women differently is childbearing, but maternal mortality has been falling, so it cannot explain a worsening ratio. Combined with the steeper fall in the child ratio, social scientists look to differential treatment of girl babies: severe neglect in infancy raising girls' death rates; sex-selective abortion; and female infanticide. NCERT notes evidence that all three have operated in India. The sonogram (ultrasound), developed to detect foetal disorders, is misused to identify and abort female foetuses. The regional pattern supports this: the lowest ratios are in the most prosperous regions — the Economic Survey names Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi, with high per-capita incomes and low child ratios. So sex selection is not due to poverty, ignorance or lack of resources: prosperous families who now want only one or two children may also want to choose their sex, and technology lets them.
⤵ How son preference turns into a falling child sex ratio
Son preferencesocial norms value males more — inheritance, old-age support, rituals, dowry (Chapter 3)
Smaller family normprosperous families want one or two children
Technology availableultrasound can detect sex early in pregnancy
Selectionsex-selective abortion, plus neglect of girl infants and, in places, infanticide
Resultchild sex ratio falls fastest where incomes are highest
The state has responded with law: the Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, in force since 1996 and strengthened in 2003, banning sex determination with heavy fines and imprisonment; and recently the programme Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao. But NCERT concludes that in the long run the answer depends more on how social attitudes change, though laws help.
Reading NCERT's photograph ‘Women's Agitation’ (page 27)Women at a demonstration hold a hand-lettered Hindi placard and illustrated posters; the placard's message is that a daughter is as precious to a home as a son. The point: the sex-ratio problem is also a site of collective action — the women's movement campaigned against sex-selective abortion before and after the 1994 law.
Beyond NCERT — law, schemes and newer data
The PNDT Act was passed in 1994 and came into force on 1 January 1996; the 2003 amendment renamed it the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act and covered pre-conception selection (UPSC 1992: the bill was prompted by female foeticide).
Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao was launched on 22 January 2015 at Panipat (Haryana).
NFHS-5 (2019–21) recorded 1,020 females per 1,000 males in its household population and a sex ratio at birth (children born in the last five years) of 929. These are sample-survey figures and not comparable with the Census; the next Census will be the real test.
Amartya Sen drew attention to Asia's ‘missing women’ in a 1990 essay — women who would be alive but for unequal treatment.
Scholars explain the gap between tribal and Scheduled Caste sex ratios (GS1 2015) partly by the greater economic role and relative autonomy of women in many tribal communities and by weaker dowry and son-preference norms there; this is an attributed explanation, and regional differences are large.
8. Literacy
In simple wordsA mother who can read the label on a medicine bottle, a bus number or her child's report card has choices her own illiterate mother did not. Multiply that across a country, and literacy reshapes health, work and voice.
Literacy, the prerequisite for education, is an instrument of empowerment: it widens awareness of career options and participation in the knowledge economy, improves health awareness and fuller participation in community life. Literacy has improved greatly since Independence, though it must keep pace with population growth. It varies by gender, region and social group: in 2011 the female rate was 16.3 points below the male; female literacy has risen faster because it started lower; the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have lower literacy, and women within them lower still; Kerala approaches universal literacy while Bihar lags far behind. These inequalities matter especially because they reproduce themselves across generations — illiterate parents struggle to ensure their children's education.
Male and female literacy, 1951–2011, redrawn from NCERT Table 4.
Reading NCERT Table 4 — Literacy rate in India (page 28)Percentage of the population aged 7 and above, 1951–2011: persons 18.3 → 73.0; males 27.2 → 80.9; females 8.9 → 64.6. The male–female gap rose from 18.3 (1951) to a peak of 26.6 (1981) and then narrowed to 16.3 (2011). The point: the gender gap first widened (male literacy grew faster from a higher base) and only later closed.
NCERT's literacy arithmetic
The text says female literacy rose 10.4 points in 2001–11 against ‘7.6’ for males; a few lines later it says males rose ‘about 5%’. Table 4: males 75.9 → 80.9 = 5.0; females 54.2 → 64.6 = 10.4; persons 65.4 → 73.0 = 7.6. The 7.6 is the overall rise, not the male one.
‘Almost two-thirds of our population is now literate’ is the 2001 picture (65.4%); 2011 is 73%.
Two Census 2011 literacy figures circulate: 74.04% (provisional; used on the live Economics page) and about 73.0% (final, NCERT's Table 4) — Beyond NCERT. Quote either with its label; do not mix them.
9. Rural–urban differences and migration
In simple wordsA young man from a village may live in a city slum but send money home, return for harvests and marry in his village. Rural and urban India are not two separate worlds; people, money and television images flow between them every day.
Most Indians have always lived in villages, and still do: in 2011, 68.8% were rural and 31.2% urban. But the urban share rose steadily from about 11% at the start of the twentieth century to about 28% at the start of the twenty-first — about two and a half times. And the economic and social significance of agrarian-rural life is declining relative to industrial-urban life: agriculture now contributes only about one-sixth of GDP, though most people still depend on it, and more villagers work outside agriculture — in transport, business or crafts — or commute daily to towns.
Urbanisation, 1901–2011, redrawn from NCERT Table 5.
Reading NCERT Table 5 — Rural and urban population (page 29)Rural and urban population (millions) and shares for every census, 1901–2011: urban rose from 26 million (10.8%) to 377 million (31.2%), rural from 213 million to 833 million. The urban share barely moved until 1941 and then rose every decade. The point: India is still mostly rural in numbers, but urbanisation has accelerated since Independence.
Mass media and transport bring urban lifestyles and consumption standards to remote villages, creating new aspirations; villages were never beyond market forces, and are now ever more integrated into the consumer market (Chapter 4). Seen from the city, urban growth shows the town acting as a magnet: those without enough work in villages migrate in search of it. Migration is accelerated by the decline of common property resources — ponds, forests, grazing lands — that once let the landless poor survive; once these are privatised or exhausted, people must buy fuel, fodder and food they once got free, while cash earnings in villages remain scarce. The city may also be preferred for social reasons: its anonymity can offer Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes some partial protection from the daily humiliation of a village where everyone knows their caste, and lets poorer members of socially dominant rural groups take up ‘low-status’ work they could not do at home. The biggest cities — the metropolises — grow fastest, and infrastructure cannot keep pace; the media make India's public face increasingly urban, yet rural India remains decisive in political power.
Why villagers move to cities — NCERT's push and pull factors.
Dated urban figures in NCERT
NCERT says there are ‘now 5,161 towns and cities’ with 286 million people — these are 2001 Census figures, though its own Table 5 gives 377 million urban in 2011. Census 2011 counted 7,935 towns and 53 million-plus urban agglomerations (35 in 2001) — Beyond NCERT, as on the live Human Settlements page.
‘More than two-thirds of the urban population lives in 27 million-plus cities’ does not match any recent Census; in 2011 the 53 million-plus agglomerations held about two-fifths of the urban population (Beyond NCERT). Do not quote ‘two-thirds’.
Reading NCERT Activity 2.4 (page 30)Survey your school: how many generations ago did classmates' families come to live in the area? Tabulate and discuss what it says about rural–urban migration. The point: migration is visible in your own classroom — most urban families are only one to three generations from a village. Answer in the in-text section.
10. Population policy in India
In simple wordsA government can build clinics, hand out contraceptives and run advertisements — but it cannot decide how many children a couple wants. When it tried to force the decision, people revolted. That is the lesson of India's population policy.
Because population dynamics shape development and well-being, India has had an official population policy for over half a century — it was perhaps the first country to announce one, in 1952. It took the form of the National Family Planning Programme, whose broad aim has been to influence the rate and pattern of population growth in socially desirable directions: at first, to slow growth through birth control methods, better public health and greater awareness.
The programme suffered a setback during the National Emergency. With normal parliamentary and legal procedures suspended and ordinances in force, the government tried to cut growth through a coercive programme of mass sterilisation — vasectomy for men, tubectomy for women. NCERT records that vast numbers of mostly poor and powerless people were forcibly sterilised, and that lower-level officials such as schoolteachers and office workers were pressured to bring people to sterilisation camps. There was widespread popular opposition, and the government elected after the Emergency abandoned the programme. It was renamed the National Family Welfare Programme; coercion was dropped, and it now has broad socio-demographic objectives. New guidelines came with the National Population Policy, 2000, and in 2017 most of these goals were folded into the National Health Policy 2017 with new targets.
Milestones of India's population policy.
Reading NCERT Box 2.5 — Important goals of National Health Policy 2017 (pages 32–33)A long list of time-bound targets, mostly for 2025: raise government health spending from 1.15% to 2.5% of GDP; raise life expectancy from 67.5 to 70; cut the TFR to 2.1 nationally and in every State; cut under-five mortality to 23 and maternal mortality to 100 by 2020; neonatal mortality to 16; HIV ‘90:90:90’; TB cure above 85% and elimination; reduce blindness, premature deaths from non-communicable disease, tobacco use and child stunting (by 40%); above 90% immunisation, antenatal care, skilled birth attendance and met need for family planning; safe water and sanitation for all by 2020; and staffing and facilities in high-priority districts. The point: population policy has become health and welfare policy — fertility targets sit beside mortality, nutrition and spending. The box is labelled ‘Box 2.5’ and, on its second page, ‘Box 5’; the text also points to ‘Box 2.4’ for India's ‘achievements’, although Box 2.4 is about the demographic transition.
NCERT's conclusion: the state can do a great deal to create the conditions for demographic change, but most demographic variables — especially fertility — are ultimately matters of economic, social and cultural change.
Dates to get right
NCERT writes ‘National Emergency (1975–76)’. The Emergency ran from 25 June 1975 to 21 March 1977 (Beyond NCERT); the sterilisation drive peaked in 1976.
India adopted a national family planning programme in 1952 — the first, not the second, country (UPSC 2005 keyed statement 1 as wrong).
NPP 2000: replacement-level TFR by 2010 (medium-term) and a stable population by 2045 (long-term) (UPSC 2005, 2008) — Beyond NCERT.
Beyond NCERT
The 42nd Amendment (1976) placed ‘Population control and family planning’ in the Concurrent List (entry 20A).
The Shah Commission, set up after the Emergency, reported excesses in the sterilisation drive (see Politics in India since Independence, Chapter 6).
The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo) moved policy worldwide from targets to reproductive health and rights; India's NPP 2000 followed this ‘target-free’, voluntary approach.
Latest official estimates (SRS): infant mortality rate 28 per 1,000 live births (2020) and maternal mortality ratio 97 per lakh live births (2018–20).
Why this matters for answer-writingOn population and poverty (GS1 2015) or women's empowerment and fertility (GS1 2019), present the Malthusian view and its critics side by side, then the evidence: fertility fell first where women's literacy, child survival and incomes rose (Kerala, Tamil Nadu), not where coercion was tried. End with NCERT's line that fertility is ultimately a matter of social and cultural change.
NCERT's activities, chart exercise and box questions — short answers
Activity 2.1: How did agricultural productivity increase, and what else proved Malthus wrong? (page 10)
Productivity: irrigation, high-yielding seeds, chemical fertilisers and pesticides (the Green Revolution in India), mechanisation, extension of cultivated area, better transport and storage, scientific research. Other reasons: birth rates fell voluntarily with prosperity, education and contraception (the demographic transition); trade and imports; industrial growth raised incomes; and, as critics argued, hunger depends on distribution and entitlements, not only on total food.
Activity 2.2: Why is the birth rate slow to decline while the death rate falls fast? What influences family size? (page 11)
Death rates fall through public measures everyone welcomes — vaccines, sanitation, medicine. Birth rates depend on private decisions shaped by norms: children as labour and old-age security, high child deaths in the past, son preference, religious and community norms, early marriage, women's low education and limited say. Elders usually cite many child deaths, farm work, old-age support and the wish for sons.
Box 2.2: Compare the 1918–19 influenza with the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–21. (page 14)
Both were respiratory viruses spread by movement (troops then, air travel now). 1918–19: about 5% of India's population died (12–17 million), with a negative decade of growth; no vaccines or antibiotics. COVID-19: far lower mortality share, but lockdowns caused economic shock and migrant workers' distress; vaccines were developed within a year. Use official figures from media sources with their dates.
Chart 3 exercise: Where will the 0–4 age group of 1961 be in later pyramids? (page 21)
It moves up five years for every five years: the 20–24 band in 1981, the 40–44 band in 2001, and the 65–69 band in 2026 — shrinking a little at each step as members die.
Chart 3 exercise: Where is the widest part of the pyramid as you move from 1961 to 2026? (page 21)
At the base (0–4 and 5–9) in 1961 and 1981; it moves up to the young-adult bands by 2001 and to roughly the 20s and 30s by 2026 — the ‘bulge’ of the demographic dividend.
Chart 3 exercise: What might the pyramid look like in 2051 and 3001? (page 21)
2051: closer to a column or ‘barrel’, with a narrow base and a wide middle and top as the bulge ages — like Kerala's 2026 pyramid. 3001 cannot be projected; if fertility stays near replacement and life expectancy high, a stable column; if fertility stays below replacement, an inverted base. The point is the method, not a forecast.
Activity 2.3: Does the age structure affect relations between generations? (page 24)
Tension: a high old-age dependency ratio burdens the young; migration leaves elderly parents alone; disputes over property and care. Bonds: grandparents care for children while parents work; the elderly share wisdom and resources. Outcomes depend on family form, pensions and health care — list both and explain each.
Activity 2.4: Survey when classmates' families came to the area. What does it show about migration? (page 30)
Typically many urban families arrived within one to three generations, from nearby districts or other States, for work or education; some moved within the city. Tabulate by generation and origin; it shows urbanisation is recent and driven by migration, with continuing ties to villages.
Box 2.5: Read the National Health Policy 2017 goals and discuss their implications. (page 33)
They shift from population control to health and welfare: fertility (TFR 2.1) sits beside mortality, nutrition, disease and spending targets. Implications: more public spending, focus on high-priority districts, women's and child health. Many 2020 and 2025 targets were ambitious; check progress against later data (for example NFHS-5's TFR of 2.0).
NCERT exercise — answer outlines
Try each question yourself first, then open the outline.
Q1. Explain the basic argument of the theory of demographic transition. Why is the transition period associated with a ‘population explosion’?
Argument: growth is linked to development; three stages — high birth and death rates (low growth) → transition → low birth and death rates (low growth). Explosion: death rates fall quickly through disease control, public health and nutrition, while birth rates — socio-cultural and slow to change — lag; the widening gap means very rapid growth. Illustrate with India: rates diverge after 1921; peak growth 1961–81; transition still incomplete. Western Europe completed it in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Q2. Why did Malthus believe that catastrophic events like famines and epidemics were inevitable?
Because population grows geometrically and food arithmetically, population always outstrips subsistence; humanity's capacity for preventive checks (late marriage, abstinence, celibacy) is limited; so positive checks — famine and disease — must restore the balance. Add the refutation: Europe's falling birth rates and rising food output; the liberal and Marxist critique that poverty comes from unequal distribution; Sen's entitlements.
Q3. What is meant by ‘birth rate’ and ‘death rate’? Explain why the birth rate is relatively slow to fall while the death rate declines much faster.
Birth rate: live births per 1,000 population in a year; death rate: deaths per 1,000 population in a year. Deaths fall fast through public health, vaccination, sanitation, medicine, famine relief — accepted by all. Births depend on family decisions and social norms — child survival, old-age security, son preference, women's education and age at marriage — which change over generations. India: death rate fell sharply after 1921, birth rate only slowly.
Q4. Which States have reached or are near replacement levels? Which still have very high growth? What could explain the differences?
Near or below replacement (2016, NCERT): Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal (TFR 1.7 each), and Kerala. High: Bihar (3.3), Uttar Pradesh (3.1), Madhya Pradesh (2.8), Rajasthan (2.7); SRS 2020 birth rates highest in Bihar (25.5) and Uttar Pradesh (25.1). Reasons: female literacy and age at marriage; infant mortality; health services and family-planning reach; urbanisation and incomes; women's autonomy and kinship patterns (north–south differences, Chapter 3); son preference. Beyond NCERT: NFHS-5 (2019–21) puts India at 2.0 and Bihar highest at about 3.0.
Q5. What is meant by the ‘age structure’ of the population? Why is it relevant for economic development and growth?
Definition: proportions of people in different age groups. India: under-15 share 42% (1971) → 29% (2011); 60+ rising. Relevance: the dependency ratio — a falling ratio offers a demographic dividend (79 in 1970 → 64 in 2005 → 48 projected for 2025); but only with education and employment (NCERT Box 2.3: the real ratio is non-workers to workers); the window is temporary as the bulge ages (Kerala). Policy: skills, jobs, health, women's workforce participation.
Q6. What is meant by the ‘sex ratio’? Implications of a declining sex ratio? Do parents still prefer sons? Why?
Definition: females per 1,000 males; India 972 (1901) → 927 (1991) → 943 (2011); child sex ratio 976 (1961) → 919 (2011). Implications: ‘missing’ girls; a shortage of brides in some regions, leading to bride-buying and trafficking; possible rise in violence against women; it reflects and deepens gender inequality. Son preference: patrilineal inheritance and residence, sons as old-age support, ritual roles, dowry costs (Chapter 3); combined with small families and ultrasound, it leads to sex selection, worst in prosperous north-western States. Responses: PCPNDT Act, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, women's education and property rights, changing attitudes (NCERT: attitudes matter most).
What to remember
Numbers
Census in India1867–72 first counts; decennial since 1881; 2011 latest (7th since 1951)
Malthus, Essay on Population1798 (Malthus 1766–1834)
India's population, Census 2011121 crore (1.21 billion)
Growth 1911–21negative (−0.03% a year; −0.3% decadal) — 1918–19 influenza
Influenza deaths in India, 1918–1912.5 million (page 12) or 17 million (Box 2.2); about 5%
Peak growthabout 2.2% a year, 1961–81 (24.8% decadal, 1961–71)
TFR 1.7 (2016)Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal
Sex ratio: why it favours males and whether maternal mortality explains it (1986), the trend (1997), more boys than girls at birth (1999), the PNDT bill and female foeticide (1992).
Age structure and dividend: largest age group in 1991 (1995), share above 65 (2008), median ages (2008), meaning of the dividend (2011), how to realise it (2013), ageing countries — Italy, Japan, South Korea (2024).
Policy: India first with a programme, NPP 2000 targets, Kerala first to replacement (2005); stabilisation by 2045 (2008). Also the 1981 death rate (1983).
Mains — where it appears and how to answer
Sex ratio (GS1): adverse sex ratios in prosperous regions (2014) — NCERT's argument almost word for word: small-family norm plus son preference plus ultrasound, so not poverty; tribal versus SC sex ratios (2015) — women's economic role and weaker son preference among many tribes, with attribution.
Population and development (GS1): population as cause or consequence of poverty (2015) — Malthus versus his liberal and Marxist critics, Sen's entitlements, the transition evidence; empowering women as the key to population control (2019) — literacy, age at marriage, child survival, Kerala and Tamil Nadu versus coercion.
Demographic dividend (GS2, GS3): the dividend and skills (GS2 2016) and employability (GS3 2014) — use Box 2.3's distinction between age-based and work-based dependency and the employment data.
Transition and ageing (GS1): challenges of demographic transition (2026), the ‘demographic winter’ (2024), globalisation and the aged (2013) — regional divergence (Kerala versus Uttar Pradesh), ageing, momentum, below-replacement fertility.
Answer frame: define with the indicator → NCERT's data trend (Census, SRS) → social causes (norms, gender, region, class) → attributed debate (Malthusian vs distributional; dividend optimists vs sceptics) → policy (NPP 2000, PCPNDT, BBBP, NHP 2017) and its limits → NCERT's conclusion that social change matters most.
Self-check
Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.
1. According to Malthus, population and food grow respectively in:
2. UPSC 2012: The correct order of the stages of demographic transition is:
3. Why does NCERT conclude that sex-selective abortion in India is not due to poverty or ignorance?
4. UPSC 2011: India is regarded as having a ‘demographic dividend’ because of its high population in the age group:
5. The child sex ratio first fell below the overall sex ratio in which Census?
6. UPSC 2009: Infant mortality rate is
7. India's first official population policy was announced in:
8. Which statement about literacy in NCERT Table 4 is correct?
UPSC questions from this chapter
Open any question to attempt it in the Question bank — your attempt is saved to your progress.