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After reading this article you will learn about population projections in India.
Population projections in India have been made in India by a Standing Committee of Experts on Population Projections constituted by the Planning Commission prior to the preparation of each Five Year Plan from 1958. They provide information on the population status at the time of beginning of the Plan and population projections for future during the preparation of the Plan.
For instance, the Expert Committee on Population Projections was set up in 1984 to revise the official series of population projections in the light of the 1981 Census data. The Committee worked out High, Medium and Low projections for 1989-2001 and recommended the medium projection for adoption.
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These recommendations were submitted to the Planning Commission in 1985 for use in the formulation of the Seventh Five Year Plan. Similarly, the Planning Commission appointed a Standing Committee of Experts on Population Projections in 1988 to work out population projections for the formation of the Eighth Plan.
It reviewed the medium projections of the earlier committee in the light of available data on fertility, mortality and family planning. It submitted its projections for 1986-2006 in 1989. Over the years, there has been considerable improvement in the methods used for population projections.
There has also been much improvement in the accuracy of predictions. For instance, the Population Projection Committee of 1988 projected a population of 84.36 crores for 1 March, 1991. This figure was only a little lower (0.27 crores) than 84.63 crores in the Census of 1991.
The Planning Commission Constituted a Technical Group on Population Projections in 1996 before the formulation of the Ninth Plan. It was asked to make population projections for the period 1996-2016 on the basis of the 1991 Census and other available data.
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This Group worked out the following population projections for the country and the major states:
Population Growth:
Table 1 shows that the population of India is projected to grow from 93.42 crores in 1996 to 126.36 crores in 2016. The growth rate of population has been projected to decline from 1.62 per cent per annum in 1996-2001 to 1.39 per cent per annum in 2011-2016. These figures have been projected on the assumption that both the crude birth rate and the crude death rate will decline over the years, as shown in Table. 2.
The state-wise projections for the growth rate of population show wide variations in Table 3. They vary between 0.82 per cent for Tamil Nadu to 2.22per cent per annum for Uttar Pradesh during the period 1997-2012. Other states with low population growth rates are Orissa (0.89%), Kerala (0.90%), Andhra Pradesh (1.06%), Maharashtra (1.09%), and Punjab (1.15%). Those with high population growth rates are Rajasthan (1.82%), Bihar (1.78%) and Madhya Pradesh (1.77%).
These population projections show that in states with high population growth rates their population share would increase substantially in future, whereas other states would either bave a declining or constant population, especially the southern states.
Birth Rate and Death Rate:
Table 4 reveals that the crude birth rate is projected to decline from 24.10 per thousand between 1996-200) to 21.41 per thousand between 2011-2016. Similarly the crude death rate has been projected to decline from 8.99 between 1996-2001 to 7.48 between 2011-2016.
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As a result, the natural growth rate is expected to fall from 1.51 per cent to 1.39 per cent over the two periods. The decline in the infant mortality rate both in the case of males and females has been projected to fall considerably due to better health and family welfare facilities from 63 per thousand for the period 1996-2001 to 38 per thousand for 2011 -2016 for males and from 64 to 39 for females over the same periods.
Life Expectancy:
The projected level of expectation of life at birth between 1996-2016 is shown in Table 2. It reveals that over the next three decades the life expectancy has been projected to increase from 62.3 years between 1996-2001 to 69.18 during 2011-2016.
But the life expectancy in the case of females has been shown to be higher than males. For females, it is expected to increase from 65.27 between 1996-2001 to 69.18 between 2011-2016 as against 62.30 and 67.04 respectively for males over the two periods.
The inter-state variations in Table 5 show that Kerala leads all states in life expectancy both among males and females. For females the projections from 1996-2001 to 2011-2016 are constant at 75 years and for males they tend to rise from 70.69 years during 1996-2001 to 72 years between 2011-2016.
The state with the lowest life expectancy is Madhya Pradesh with 56.83 years for the period 1996-2001 rising to 60.70 years during 2011-2016. With improved medical facilities and health care the average life expectancy will increase in all the states by 2011-2016.
Age and Sex Distribution:
The projections of age and sex-wise distribution of population are shown in table 6.
Those projections reveal the following:
1. From 2001 onwards upto 2016, the percentage of dependents in the age group 0-14 is expected to decline from 34.3 per cent in 2001 to 27.7 per cent in 2016 due to substantial reduction in birth rates. In other words, the dependency ratio has been projected to fall from 0.78 to 0.57 over the period for both young and the old.
This is still high and is a constraint on production and income because the young in the age group 0-14 do not produce and earn. Rather, more is required to be spent on their education and upbringing.
2. Moreover, there will be progressive increase in the proportion of persons above 60 years of age from 7 per cent in 1996 to 9 per cent in 2016. In absolute terms, their number will increase from 62.3 million to 112.9 million over the period. In this, women outnumber men. The growing number of senior citizens will require social security and health care because they also come in the category of dependents.
3. There will be increase in the percentage of population in the working age group 15-59 from 59 per cent in 1996 to 63.3 per cent in 2016. It means that there will be more than two working persons to support one dependent.
The increase in the percentage of persons in the 15-59 age group implies that the number of job seekers will increase in the country.
Further, with the increase in the share of the working population in the total population, the growth rate of the economy will rise rapidly when output, income, saving and investment increase.
Sex ratio is the ratio of women to men in the total population. It is defined as the ratio of females per thousand males. India is one of the few countries in the world where sex ratio is adverse to women. The sex ratio is affected by the different factors like, sex differentials in enumeration in population census and the sex differential in mortality, discrimination in education of boys and girls, preference being given for son, discrimination in opportunities for women in economic activities, etc.
The projected sex ratio as shown in Table 1 reveals that the number of females per 1000 males is expected to increase in the future. It was 927 in 1996 which has been projected to gradually rise to 947 in 2016 due to the protection of female foetus, termination of female pregnancy and female infanticide by strict enforcement of law, and by improvement in the general status of women and female empowerment.
Rural-Urban Distribution:
The population projections for rural-urban population in India reveal that the proportion of people residing in rural areas will continue to be much higher than those in urban areas. Despite industrialisation, the percentage of urban population will not increase much over the coming years.
As per the projections, urban population as a percentage of total population will increase from 27.23 percent in 1996 to 28.77 per cent in 2001, to 30.35 per cent in 2006, to 31.99 per cent in 2011 and to 33.68 per cent in 2016, as shown in the last column of Table 1.