Describe demography and the demographic cycle with its application to India.

Demography and the Demographic Cycle

• The basic equation — population change = (births - deaths) + (IN-migration - out-migration); the first bracket is natural increase and the second net migration
• For a country as a whole migration is usually small, so natural increase dominates; for a city or district it may dominate entirely
• The demographic cycle describes five stages through which populations pass as they develop, and it should be presented stage by stage:
• Stage 1 — high stationary: high birth rate and high death rate, which cancel out, so the population is stationary but fluctuates with famine and epidemic. India was in this stage before 1920
• Stage 2 — early expanding: the death rate begins to fall while the birth rate remains high, so the population begins to grow
• The death rate falls first, and that IS the key TO the whole model — mortality responds to sanitation, water, food supply, immunisation and medical care, which can be supplied from outside and act quickly
• Fertility, by contrast, depends on individual decisions about family size, which change slowly and follow social and economic change rather than technical intervention
• The gap between the falling death rate and the still-high birth rate IS the population explosion — and it is a transitional phenomenon rather than a permanent one
• Stage 3 — late expanding: the death rate falls further and the birth rate now begins to fall, but growth continues because the gap persists and because of population momentum
• Stage 4 — low stationary: low birth rate and low death rate, again in balance, so the population is stationary at a much higher level
• Stage 5 — declining: the birth rate falls below the death rate and the population declines, as in Japan and several European countries
• INDIA is in stage 3, moving toward stage 4, with several southern states already at or below replacement fertility while some northern states remain in late stage 2 or early stage 3
• The demographic transition theory is the explanatory account behind the cycle — that societies move from high to low birth and death rates as they industrialise, urbanise and educate
• The criticisms should be given for a complete answer — it is descriptive rather than predictive; it was derived from western European experience and does not fit every country; the speed of transition has been far faster in developing countries because mortality fell through imported technology rather than through economic development; and it ignores migration and does not explain why fertility falls
• That third point deserves emphasis — Europe took over a century to make the transition while India has done it in a few decades, which is precisely why the intervening population growth was so much larger

Demographic Concepts and the Indian Position

• The fertility measures must be defined precisely, since they are constantly confused:
• Crude birth rate — live births per 1000 mid-year population per year; simple but affected by age and sex structure
• General fertility rate — live births per 1000 women aged 15 to 49, which removes that distortion
• Age-specific fertility rate — births per 1000 women in a specified age group
• Total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children a woman would bear IF she experienced the current age-specific fertility rates throughout her reproductive life
• It is the single most useful fertility measure, being independent of age structure and directly interpretable as "children per woman"
• Replacement level fertility is about 2.1 — and the reason for the 0.1 above two should be given: it allows for girls who die before completing their reproductive life, and for the slight excess of male births
• Gross reproduction rate — the average number of daughters a woman would bear, ignoring mortality
• Net reproduction rate (NRR) — the same allowing for mortality; NRR = 1 means each generation exactly replaces itself, which is the definition of a stationary population
• Population momentum is the concept that explains a puzzle students frequently raise — a population continues to grow for decades after fertility reaches replacement level
• The reason is the age structure — a young population contains a very large number of people entering their reproductive years, so even at two children each the absolute number of births remains large relative to deaths in a small elderly cohort
• This is why India’s population will continue to rise for several decades despite fertility having reached replacement level, and it is a matter of arithmetic rather than of programme failure
• The other demographic indices — dependency ratio, the ratio of dependants (under 15 and over 64) to those of working age; sex ratio, expressed in India as females per 1000 males; population density; literacy rate; and the doubling time, approximated by 70 divided by the annual percentage growth rate
• The demographic dividend is a concept of real economic importance — the period during the transition when the working-age population forms an unusually large share and the dependency ratio is low
• It creates an opportunity for rapid economic growth, but only if the working-age population is educated, healthy and employed
• Otherwise the same demography produces unemployment and social unrest instead — so the dividend is an opportunity, not a guarantee, and the window is time-limited, closing as the population ages
• India is in this window now, which makes investment in education, skills and health an economic as well as a social imperative
• The INDIAN demographic position in summary — the world’s most populous country; TFR now at or below replacement level nationally; a still-growing population because of momentum; an improving but still adverse sex ratio; rapid urbanisation; a beginning of population ageing; and enormous inter-state variation, with the southern and western states demographically far ahead of the central and eastern ones
• That inter-state variation is the single most important fact for planning, since it means different states need entirely different policies at the same time
• The death rate falls first, and the gap is the explosion, which is the key to the whole demographic cycle
• Mortality can be imported and fertility cannot, since sanitation and vaccines act fast while family size decisions change slowly
• Population momentum is arithmetic, not failure, since a young population keeps growing after replacement is reached
• Replacement fertility is about two point one, the extra tenth allowing for female deaths and the excess of male births
• A net reproduction rate of one means replacement, allowing for mortality, unlike the gross rate which does not
• Total fertility rate is independent of age structure, which is why it is the most useful single fertility measure
• India is in stage three moving to four, with southern states already at stage four and some northern ones behind
• The transition took Europe a century and India decades, which is exactly why the intervening growth was so much larger
• The theory is descriptive rather than predictive, and was derived from Western European experience
• The demographic dividend is an opportunity, not a guarantee, and requires the working-age population to be educated and employed
• The dividend window is time-limited, closing as the population ages, which makes the investment urgent
• Doubling time is roughly seventy over the growth rate, which is a quick calculation worth knowing
• Dependency ratio compares dependants to workers, and falls during the transition before rising again with ageing
• Inter-state variation is the key planning fact, since different states need different policies simultaneously
• Migration dominates city populations even where it is negligible for the country as a whole
• Stage one fluctuates with famine and epidemic, which is why it is called stationary rather than stable
• Stage five is decline, seen in Japan and Europe, where the birth rate has fallen below the death rate
• Crude birth rate is distorted by age structure, which the general fertility rate corrects by using women of reproductive age
• Fertility, mortality and migration are the only three processes that change a population, and every change is their net result
• Ageing follows the transition inevitably, which is why India must plan for the elderly while still growing
• Sex ratio in India is females per thousand males, which inverts the international convention and confuses comparisons
• The theory does not explain why fertility falls, which is its main theoretical weakness rather than a practical one