Age Composition
The population of a nation is generally grouped into three broad categories:
Children (generally below 15 years): They are economically unproductive and need to be provided with food, clothing, education and medical care.
Working Age (15-59 years): They are economically productive and biologically reproductive.
They comprise the working population.
Aged (Above 59 years): They can be economically productive though they and may have retired. They may be working voluntarily but they are not available for employment through recruitment.
Sex composition
Sex composition is a very significant indicator of the quality of population of a country as a human resource. In fact, primarily it is understood on the basis of sex ratio.
The Sex Ratio refers to the number of females per 1000 males in a given area at a specified time period.
The Child Sex Ratio is the sex ratio in the age group 0-6 years (child) in a given area at a specified time period.
Natural Advantage v/s Social Disadvantage
Females have a biological advantage over males as they tend to be more resilient than males yet this advantage is cancelled out by the social disadvantages and discriminations that they face.
Life expectancy at Birth in India
67.3 years for male and 69.6 years for female in 2011-2015.
Transgender composition
During Enumeration of Census 2011, for the first time three codes were provided i.e. Male-1, Female –2 and others -3. In case the respondent wished to record neither ‘1’ nor ‘2’, then enumerator was instructed to record sex as ‘other’ and give code ‘3’. Still, it is important to note that the Census on India does not collect any data specifically on ‘transgender’. Thus, the category of ‘other’ would not only include ‘transgender’ but also any person who desires to record sex under the category of ‘other’. It is also possible that some transgenders would have returned themselves either male or female depending upon their choice. The population of ‘other’ as per Census 2011 is 4,87,803.
Divyang composition
The 2011 census shows 207.8 lakh households having disabled persons in the country constituting 8.3 percent of the total households. Total households having disabled persons show an increase of 20.5 lakhs from last census.
Out of the total disabled population of 2.68 crores in Census 2011, 1.46 crores (54.5%) are literates and the remaining 1.22 crores (45.5%) are illiterates. One decade ago, the percentage of literates among disabled population was 49.3% and the remaining 50.7% were illiterates
Working Population Composition
The population of India according to their economic status is divided into three groups, namely; main workers, marginal workers and non-workers.
Standard Census Definition
Main Worker is a person who works for at least 183 days in a year.
Marginal Worker is a person who works for less than 183 days in a year.
Work participation rate is defined as the percentage of total workers (main and marginal) to total population.
It is observed that in India, the proportion of workers (both main and marginal) is only 39 per cent (2001) leaving a vast majority of 61 per cent as non-workers. This indicates an economic status in which there is a larger proportion of dependent population, further indicating possible existence of large number of unemployed or under employed people
The states with larger percentages of workers are Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Chhattisgarh Karnataka, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Meghalaya. Among the Union Territories, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu have higher participation rate.
Adolescents
An important aspect of population growth in India is the growth of its adolescents. At present the share of adolescents i.e. up to the age group of 10-19 years is about 21 per cent (2011)..
The adolescent population, though, regarded as the youthful population having high potentials, but at the same time they are quite vulnerable if not guided and channelized properly.
Issues related to Youth
The National Youth Policy 2014 defines the age of youth as persons between the age 15-29 years. Youths in India today face various challenges
- employment,
- drug abuse,
- suicidal tendencies,
- adverse impact of media and social-media
- stress arising out of changing societal structure especially due to emergence of nuclear families.
- radicalization
The population pyramid (The age-sex pyramid)
The age-sex structure of a population refers to the number of females and males in different age groups. A population pyramid is used to show the age-sex structure of the population. The shape of the population pyramid reflects the characteristics of the population. The left side shows the percentage of males while the right side shows the percentage of women in each age group. The following three diagrams show different types of Population Pyramids.
Expanding Population
The age-sex pyramid in such a case is a triangular shaped pyramid with a wide base and is typical of less developed countries. These have larger populations in lower age groups due to high birth rates.
Constant Population
Here, the age-sex pyramid is bell shaped and tapered towards the top. This shows birth and death rates are almost equal leading to a near constant population.
Declining Population
This pyramid has a narrow base and a tapered top showing low birth and death rates. The population growth in developed countries is usually zero or negative.
