Population

1. What is population?

The term population refers to the whole number of people or inhabitants in a country or region.

2. What are the factors determining population?

The basic factors determining population growth are

• Birth rate
• Death rate
• Migration
• Out-migration (Emigration)
• In-migration (Immigration)
• Which has positive influence on population?

3. Birth rate has a positive influence on growth of population. Higher the birth rate, higher will be the growth of population.

4. What are the factors determining population?

The birth rate depends on the following factors:

• The age of marriage
• The rapidity of child birth
• Social customs and beliefs and
• Illiteracy and ignorance of controlling births.

5. What kind of influence do death rate has on population?

Lower the death rate, higher will be the population growth and vice versa

6. What is relationship between migration and population?

Out-migration will reduce population growth while in-migration will increase the population growth. Migration is not an important factor contributing to the population growth due to the restrictions imposed by different countries. Thus, the two major causes for the variations in population are birth rate and death rate.

7. How do population leads to economic development?

• In a backward economy, population growth results in increase in supply of labour. This in turn results in the availability of cheap labour in the economy. Therefore, under a given technology with the availability of capital, production can be increased by increasing the labour use.
• Population growth results in increased demand for products. Increased demand results in increased production, employment and income in the economy. As a result, the economy will develop.
• Due to population growth, the supply of goods and services increases. Increased supply results in increased production, which in turn results in specialisation. Specialisation will induce technological improvements.
• Increased demand and increased supply of products result in scarcity of resources, which induce technological improvements.

8. What is population explosion?

Population explosion means the alarming and rapid rate of increase in population.

9. What are the causes of population explosion?

• High Birth Rate
• Low Death Rate
• Early Marriage
• Social and Religious reasons
• Poverty
• Standard of living
• Illiteracy

10. How is population explosion problem in economic development?

(1) Food Shortage

(2) Burden of unproductive Consumers

(3) Reduction in National and Per Capita Income

(4) Low savings and investment

(5) Reduction in Capital Formation

(6). Unemployment and Underemployment

(7) Loss of Women’s Labour

(8) Low Labour efficiency

(9) More Expenditure on Social Welfare Programmes

(10) Agricultural Backwardness

(11) Underdeveloped Industries

(12) Financial Burden on Government

11. What are the steps for population checking?

(1) Couple Protection Rate (CPR) CPR should be increased, which means the percentage of couples using birth control or family planning methods should go up.

(2) Infant Mortality rate (IMR) IMR must be reduced further because when infants die in lesser numbers, there is an incentive to adopt small family norm by the people.

(3) Industrialisation of the country The burden of population on land must be reduced. Cottage and small scale industries must be developed in villages to provide employment to the maximum number of people. This leads to increase in standard of living which acts as a check on population growth.

(4) Increase in Female Literacy Rate and Education The educated people have a better and more responsible outlook towards the size of their families. They can understand the advantages of a small family and adopt family planning methods to reduce the family size. This will help in reducing the birth rate.

(5) Late Marriages Late marriages must be encouraged. At the same time, early marriages must be strictly checked. The minimum age of marriage for boys at 21 years and for girls at 18 years should be strictly followed in real life.

(6) Legal Steps Strict laws must be made and enforced to check early marriages and polygamy.

(7) Family Planning this is the most important measure to check the rapid growth of population. Family Planning means limiting the size of the family. The Family Planning Campaign should be a national movement. Education about family planning must be made common. People must be made aware of the different methods of birth control.

12. What is Malthusian theory of population?

• The rate of growth of population is limited by the availability of the means of subsistence i.e. Food. If the means of subsistence increase, population also increases unless it checked.
• Population increases at a faster rate than food production. In other words, while population increases in a geometric progression, food production increases in an arithmetic progression.
• The preventive and positive checks are the two measures to keep the population on the level with the available means of subsistence.

13. What are the famous theories of population?

• Malthusian theory of population
• Optimum theory of population

14. What is census?

The term ‘Census’ can be defined as the process of collecting, compiling, evaluating, analysing and publishing the demographic economic and social data relating to all persons in a country or a well-delimited part of a country at a specified time.

15. Why is census important?

Census is very important to know

(1) The rate of growth of population

(2) The changes in the distribution of the population.

16. What are the details recorded in census report?

• Total Population
• Sex Composition
• Rural versus Urban population
• Age Composition
• Density of Population
• Literacy Rate
• Urbanisation
• Occupational Pattern

17. When was National wide Family programmed launched?

A nationwide family planning programme was launched in 1952.

18. What is the objective of population policy?

The main objective of the population policy is to ensure that there is reasonable gap between the fall of death and birth rates.

19. What is population policy?

Population policy refers to the efforts made by any Government to control and change the population structure.

20. What was the objective of National Population Policy 2000?

The National Population Policy (NPP) 2000 has the immediate objective of addressing the unmet needs of contraception, health infrastructure, health personnel and integrating service delivery for basic reproductive and child health care.

21. What is the medium objective of National population policy 2000?

It also lays emphasis on the medium term objective of bringing total fertility rates to replacement level by 2010. A Total Fertility Rate of 2.1 is known as replacement level fertility.

22. What are the measures to achieve stable population?

• Reduction of infant mortality rate (IMR) below 30 per 1,00,000 live births
• Reduction of maternal mortality rate (MMR) to below 100 per 1, 00,000 live births
• Universal immunization
• To achieve 80 percent deliveries in regular dispensaries, hospitals and medical institutions with trained staff
• Access to information , containing AIDS, prevention and control of communicable diseases
• Incentive to adopt two-child small family norm
• Strict enforcement of Child Marriage Restraint Act and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act
• Raising the age of marriage of girls from 18 to 20
• A special reward for women who marry after 21