The Demographic Structure of the Indian Society

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Sociology Class XII (Indian Society), Chapter 2.

Why does a death rate belong to Sociology?

Between 1911 and 1921, India's population actually shrank. Then, after 1921, it began to grow faster and faster, yet no family decided to have more children. The cause was something no individual chose: epidemics and famines came under control, so people lived longer while families kept having children at the old pace. That is the kind of puzzle this chapter handles. A single death is a private tragedy, but a death rate is a social fact, and it can only be explained by looking at society: health care, food, education and the way families think about children.

What demography is, and how a country counts its people

Demography is the systematic study of population. The word comes from Greek demos (people) and graphein (to describe). It studies changes in population size, patterns of births, deaths and migration, and the structure and composition of a population, such as the proportions of women, men and different age groups. All of it rests on counting, through a census (a count of everyone) or a survey (a count of a sample).

Why Sociology cares. Sociology's growth as a discipline owed a lot to demography. In the latter half of the eighteenth century two things happened in Europe at roughly the same time: nation states became the main form of political organisation, and the modern science of statistics began. States took on public health, policing, taxes and the governance of cities, which needed regular social statistics. Aggregate statistics also gave sociology an argument: even though a death rate is made by adding individual deaths, the rate itself is a social phenomenon. Emile Durkheim's famous study of suicide rates across countries is the standard example. He argued that the rate had to be explained by social causes, even if each individual case had personal reasons.

China has a slightly larger population but does not conduct regular censuses, which is why the Indian census is described as the largest.

Malthus and the fear of too many people

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834), an English political economist, wrote An Essay on Population in 1798. His theory was pessimistic.

Malthus's argument in one line: population grows geometrically (2, 4, 8, 16, 32…) → food grows only arithmetically (2, 4, 6, 8, 10…) → population always outruns food → poverty and misery are permanent unless growth is checked.

He said humans could use preventive checks voluntarily (postponing marriage, abstinence), but only to a limited extent. So positive checks such as famines and diseases were inevitable, because they were nature's way of correcting the imbalance between food and people.

Two views. For the exam: Malthus's predictions were proved false by the historical experience of European countries, where birth rates fell and food production rose. Another reading: critics did not only say he got the numbers wrong. Liberal and Marxist scholars argued that his whole idea of the problem was mistaken: poverty and starvation, they said, come from an unjust distribution of economic resources, which lets a wealthy minority live in luxury while the majority stays poor.

Pause and predict: a student writes, "Malthus was right that population grows geometrically, so his theory was correct." What is missing?

Check your answer: the theory also claims that food can only grow arithmetically and that famines and diseases are therefore inevitable. History showed that agricultural productivity and living standards rose in Europe, so the theory's predictions failed even if population did grow fast.

The theory of demographic transition

This theory says population growth is linked to a society's overall level of economic development, and that every society follows a typical pattern with three stages.

Why the explosion happens. Death rates fall relatively quickly because disease control, public health and better nutrition work fast. But the birth rate is a socio-cultural matter. Families form their habits about family size during a period of poverty and high death rates, and it takes longer to change those habits to suit a time of better prosperity and longer life. For a while, births far exceed deaths.

Western Europe went through this transition in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In India the transition is not yet complete: the mortality rate has been reduced but the birth rate has not been brought down to the same extent. From the 1921–31 decade onward the two curves begin to diverge, with death rates falling sharply and birth rates falling only slightly.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: the theory says every society follows the same three stage path. In reality: the model was drawn from the experience of Western Europe, and demographers treat it as a general pattern, not a fixed law. The speed of each stage depends on a society's health care, education and social attitudes, which differ across countries and across states within a country. In India the gap between states in this chapter is a good illustration.

Every demographic indicator in one place

Most demographic concepts are expressed as rates or ratios: one number for a specific area, and a second as a standard for comparison. Learn the denominators carefully, since NTA likes to swap them.

Why "crude" matters. The birth, death and fertility rates above are crude rates: rough averages for a whole population that ignore differences between age groups. That is why demographers also calculate age specific rates. High infant and maternal mortality are unambiguous indicators of backwardness and poverty, and they fall sharply with development.

Worked example: birth rate, death rate and natural increase. A town has 1,20,000 people. In one year it records 2,400 live births and 720 deaths. Step 1: birth rate = 2,400 ÷ 1,20,000 × 1,000 = 20 per 1,000. Step 2: death rate = 720 ÷ 1,20,000 × 1,000 = 6 per 1,000. Step 3: rate of natural increase = 20 − 6 = 14 per 1,000, or 1.4 per cent a year. Common wrong step: dividing by 100 instead of 1,000 gives a birth rate of 2,000 per 100, which makes no sense. The denominator is always the population in thousands.

Worked example: dependency ratio. In a population of 1,000, 300 people are below 15, 620 are aged 15 to 64 and 80 are above 64. Step 1: dependents = 300 + 80 = 380. Step 2: dependency ratio = 380 ÷ 620 × 100 = about 61.3 per cent. Meaning: every 100 working age people support about 61 dependents. Common wrong step: dividing by the total population (1,000) gives 38 per cent, which is the share of dependents, not the ratio.

Why the sex ratio is "naturally" above 1,000. Slightly more boys are born than girls, with nature producing roughly 943 to 952 female babies for every 1,000 males. Yet most countries end up with about 1,050 females per 1,000 males. Two reasons explain it: girl babies resist disease better in infancy, and women tend to outlive men, so there are more older women than men.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: nature produces roughly 943 to 952 female babies per 1,000 male babies. In reality: the usual biological benchmark is about 105 male births for every 100 female births, which works out to about 952 females per 1,000 males, the upper end of the textbook range. Remember that this ratio describes births, while the overall sex ratio also depends on who survives to old age.

India's population: size, growth and the big divide

India is the second most populous country, with 121 crore (1.21 billion) people in the 2011 Census. The growth rate was modest for the first half of the twentieth century and then jumped after independence.

What caused the negative growth of 1911–21? The influenza epidemic of 1918–19, also called "Spanish flu", a global pandemic (an epidemic affecting a very wide area). It killed about 5 per cent of India's population at the time.

Why the death rate fell after 1921. Epidemic diseases such as plague, smallpox and cholera came under control through medical cures, mass vaccination and better sanitation. Famines also became less deadly. Scholars like Amartya Sen showed that famines were not always due to a fall in food grain output: they could result from a failure of entitlements, the inability of people to buy or otherwise obtain food. Better irrigation, communication and relief by the state reduced famine deaths. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is described as the latest state effort against hunger in rural areas.

Why the birth rate fell slowly. The birth rate is a socio-cultural phenomenon, relatively slow to change. Prosperity pulls it down, especially once infant mortality falls and levels of education and awareness rise, and then family size begins to fall.

Regional variation in fertility. Total fertility rates (TFR, the average number of children a woman has) differ widely across states. In 2016 Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal had TFRs of 1.7 each, below the replacement level, and Kerala was also below it. Bihar (3.3), Madhya Pradesh (2.8), Rajasthan (2.7) and Uttar Pradesh (3.1) still had high TFRs. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar together were expected to account for almost half of the additions to India's population up to 2041.

Cause → effect: deaths fall quickly (health, food, sanitation) → births stay high (habits change slowly) → population explosion → later, education and prosperity pull births down.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: India's population growth is high because birth rates are slow to fall. In reality: even if every woman had fewer children, the population would keep growing for a time because a large group of young people is entering reproductive age. This is called population momentum, and it is why the population is projected to rise from 1.2 billion to about 1.6 billion by 2050 even though fertility is falling.

The age structure and the demographic dividend

India has a young population: the majority of Indians are young, and the average age is lower than in most other countries. The share of the 0–14 group has fallen from 42 per cent (1971) to 29 per cent (2011) and is projected to fall to 23 per cent in 2026, while the 15–59 group has risen to 63 per cent in 2011. The 60 plus group is small but rising, projected to reach 12 per cent in 2026.

A population pyramid shows these groups for males and females, from the youngest at the bottom to the oldest at the top. As births fall, the bottom narrows; as life expectancy rises, the top widens; and the middle bulges. Regional contrast is strong: Kerala is acquiring an age structure like that of developed countries, while Uttar Pradesh has high proportions in the younger groups. India as a whole lies in between.

What is the demographic dividend? When the dependency ratio falls, a large working age generation supports a small older generation, which can speed up economic growth. In 2020 the average Indian was 29 years old, against 37 in China and the United States, 45 in Western Europe and 48 in Japan. The total dependency ratio fell from 79 in 1970 to 64 in 2005, and was projected to fall to 48 in 2025 and then rise to 50 by 2050, as the share of the aged increases.

Two views. For the exam: a young age structure is an advantage for India, a window of opportunity, but it is temporary because today's workers become tomorrow's elderly. Another reading: the advantage is not automatic. The dividend arrives only if the extra workers are educated and employed. Unemployed or under educated young people become dependents instead of earners, and the textbook points out that employment generation fell sharply in the 15–30 age group between 1987–94 and 1994–2004. The gap between "age based" dependency and "real" dependency (non workers to workers) depends on unemployment and underemployment.

Pause and predict: two countries have the same share of working age people. One has high unemployment and the other has high employment. Which gets more of a demographic dividend, and why?

Check your answer: the second one. The dividend comes from the proportion of workers to non workers, not from the proportion of people of working age. Without jobs, working age people cannot earn and the benefit is lost.

The declining sex ratio

A balanced society is expected to have slightly more females than males, but India has had a declining sex ratio for more than a century. The overall figure fell from 972 in 1901 to a low of 927 in 1991, rose to 933 in 2001 and to 943 in the 2011 Census. The bigger worry is the child sex ratio (0–6 years), which was 976 in 1961 and fell to 919 in 2011.

Why not simply blame childbirth deaths? Maternal mortality is falling with development, so it cannot explain a worsening ratio. Since the child sex ratio has fallen much more steeply than the overall one, social scientists look to differential treatment of girl babies: severe neglect in infancy, which raises death rates, sex specific abortions that stop girl babies from being born, and female infanticide. Some states with the lowest child sex ratios are among the most prosperous, so the problem is not due to poverty or ignorance. It reflects son preference, a social norm that values males much more than females, together with the misuse of ultrasound technology to identify and abort female foetuses.

What the law and policy say. The Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act has been in force since 1996 and was strengthened in 2003. The programme Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao was introduced to improve the child sex ratio. The chapter's point is that laws help, but in the long run the solution depends on how social attitudes evolve.

Literacy

Literacy is an instrument of empowerment: it widens awareness of career options, health and participation in the knowledge economy. The literacy rate for persons aged 7 and above reached 73.0 per cent in 2011.

Female literacy has been rising faster than male literacy, partly because it started from a lower base: it rose by about 10.4 percentage points between 2001 and 2011 against about 5 for males. Literacy also varies by region (Kerala is approaching universal literacy, Bihar lags) and by social group, with historically disadvantaged communities such as the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes having lower rates, and women within them lower still. Literacy inequalities matter because they reproduce inequality across generations: illiterate parents are at a disadvantage in educating their children.

Rural and urban India

India has always been mainly rural. The 2011 Census shows 68.8 per cent of people in rural areas and 31.2 per cent in urban areas, while the urban share has grown from about 10.8 per cent in 1901.

Agriculture now contributes only about one sixth of GDP, and more rural people work in non farm jobs such as transport, small business and crafts. Mass media and transport are bridging the rural–urban gap, bringing urban lifestyles and new consumption desires into villages. Metropolises are growing fastest, so urban infrastructure struggles to keep pace. Even so, in political terms the rural areas remain a decisive force.

Population policy in India

India was perhaps the first country to explicitly announce a population policy, in 1952. It took the form of the National Family Planning Programme.

The history of the programme teaches one lesson: the state can create conditions for demographic change, but most demographic variables, especially fertility, are ultimately matters of economic, social and cultural change.

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Previous: Introducing Indian Society explains why a death rate or sex ratio is a social issue and not just a personal trouble.
• Next: Social Institutions: Continuity and Change studies the caste, tribe and family arrangements within which these demographic patterns arise.
• Later: Patterns of Social Inequality and Exclusion returns to the declining child sex ratio as a new challenge of gender inequality.
• Class XI link: Doing Sociology: Research Methods covers surveys and data collection, the tools behind every table in this chapter.