The population of Planet Earth had crossed Seven billion as of yesterday, the 31st of October 2011. After reaching 4 billion in the year 1975, the population has been growing by a billion every 12 year or so.
7 billion People! Of this, 2.5 billion stays in China & India. China currently leads the world with the population figures of about 1.34 billion and India is following suit at 1.21 billion. As China’s population growth rate has come down, it is expected that India would overtake China by 2025 to be the most populous nation of the word.
India’s case is a curious one. The overflowing population of the country could be a demographic dividend or a demographic disaster. Planners call it an opportunity and a challenge at the same time. If the 1.2 plus billion people are going to stay, work and live in India, I would foresee this more as a disaster than a dividend, unless the country prepares at a breakneck speed to accommodate its growing millions, which is very unlikely.
Statistics says that India now has more than 60 per cent of the population under the age of 35 years. This would be 50 per cent if one looks at Indians under 25 years of age. This is what is highlighted as demographic dividend by the ‘India zindabad’ apostles. That the working population availability is highest in India could be a dividend if so many of men and women are able to find out decent employment to pursue their lives. Therein lay the irony!
The Europe had aged and North America is ageing fast. India’s demographic dividend, if allowed to channelize and distribute well across these geographies, could really form a major dividend. Whereas products and services move freely across the continents and countries of the world, people movement is still very restricted. That could result in a huge mass of employable population rotting in the country for want of gainful jobs to make a good living. If the jobs do not come by, which one doubts, the present level of economic maladies that affect the world and the country is an indication, could lead to a disaster than dividend.
China had strictly enforced population control measures some four decade back. One child per family was made a norm and if anyone exceeded it, penalties and holding of the benefit to the family resulted in citizen complying with the law. India, during Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s emergency reign (with the help of her son Sanjay Gandhi), tried to enforce population control measures on its people. But it failed and the numbers went on increasing, though the population growth rate had come down to 17.64 per cent now from 24 per cent in the 1970s. Though the rate had come down, I find the 17.64 per cent figure still very high. The state of Kerala, which had been a model for the country in demographic matters, the growth rate is only 4.86 per cent.
Another major concern that India is going to face is the inequitable sex ratio. As per the last census (2011), there are only 914 girls available to every 100 boys. Female foeticide due to the cultural preference for families to have boys more than girls had played a major role for this to happen and this would add to the demographic disaster of India, in time to come.
Coming to the state of Kerala; as per country’s census 2011, the population is at 33.3 million persons. This forms close to 3 percent of the national population and it dwells in only 1 per cent of the total area of the country! Kerala has the highest population density of 859 people per square kilometers and it is three times the national average. The most wonderful aspect of Kerala demography is that the sex-ratio of the state (females per 1000 males) of 1084. Kerala is the only state in India with a female positive figure. In addition to all these figures, the Human development Indices (HDI) of the State are at par with that of the developed nations in terms of life expectancy, infant mortality etc. No wonder, all these figures made Kerala the model state of the country, on demography statistics.
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