- Demography refers to the statistical study of human populations – their size, composition and distribution across space – and the process through which populations change.
- Knowledge on the demographic patterns of the state provides insights to the Government to develop effective programmes and policies. It also helps the Government design strategic and targeted policy interventions to address the persistent challenges faced by the vulnerable social groups in the state.
What does population mean?
- Total number of people inhabiting a specified area or territory (e.g. population of a village, city, state, country, world).
- Total number of people of a particular group, race, class or category (e.g. population of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, or religious groups like Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs)
- In biology, collection of inter-breeding organisms of a particular species (e.g. population of tigers, deer, etc.)
Key facts :- The Government of India created a Ministry of Human Resource Development in 1985, in place of its earlier Ministry of Education and Culture. Some of the States also have done so. This suggests that the idea of people being a human resource has gained acceptance.
Human capital: Over the years, the terms used to describe staff and employees in businesses have changed. We have moved from ‘personnel’ to ‘human resources’ to ‘human capital’. Human capital represents attributes of a person that are productive in the economic context. It refers to the stock of productive skills and technical knowledge embodied in labour.
Census: The procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. The term is used mostly in connection with ‘national population and door to door censuses’ to be taken every 10 years. The Government of India, with the assistance of States, has been conducting census to collect data about various demographic and socio-economic aspects of our population.
Key Demographic Terms
| Term | Explanation |
| Crude Birth Rate | The annual number of live births per 1,000 people. |
| General Fertility Rate | The annual number of live births per 1,000 women of childbearing age (often taken to be from 15 to 49 years, but sometimes from 15 to 44). |
| Age-Specific Fertility Rates | The annual number of live births per 1,000 women in particular age groups (usually 15-19, 20-24 and so on). |
| Crude Death Rate | The annual number of deaths per 1,000 people |
| Infant Mortality Rate | The annual number of deaths of children of age less than 1-year-old per 1,000 live births. |
| Life Expectancy | The number of years which an individual at a given age can expect to live at present mortality levels.
Life expectancy of India is 69.16 years (2017) |
| Total Fertility Rate (TFR) | The number of live births per woman completing her reproductive life, if her childbearing at each age reflected the current age-specific fertility rates. |
| Gross Reproduction Rate | The number of daughters who would be born to a woman completing her reproductive life at current age-specific fertility rates |
| Net Reproduction Rate | The number of daughters who would be born to a woman according to current age-specific fertility and mortality rates. |
| Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) | Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) is defined as the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births due to pregnancy or termination of pregnancy, regardless of the site or duration of pregnancy. |
| Population pyramid | A population pyramid, also called an “age-gender-pyramid”, is a graphical illustration that shows the distribution of various age groups in a population (typically that of a country or region of the world), which forms the shape of a pyramid when the population is growing. |
| Sex ratio | The number of females per thousand males is referred to as sex ratio. |
| Child mortality rate (CMR) | Number child deaths under the age of 5 years per 1000 live births. It’s ~50 in 2016. SDG Target 2030 – 11 |
| Dependency ratio | Measure of the number of dependents aged zero to 14 and over the age of 65, compared with the total population aged 15 to 64. |
| Demographic window | Defined to be that period of time in a nation’s demographic evolution when the proportion of population of working age group is particularly prominent. |
| Demographic dividend | The economic growth potential that can result from shifts in a population’s age structure, mainly when the share of the working-age population (15 to 64) is larger than the non-working-age share of the population (14 and younger, and 65 and older)”. |
