Birth Rate

Birth Rate is a crude measure of fertility of a population and is a crucial determinant of population growth. It gives the number of live births per thousand population in a given region and year.

The Birth Rate at all India level has declined drastically over the last five decades from 36.9 in 1971 to 19.3 in 2021.

According to Census of India 2011, India had a Crude Birth Rate of 21.8. According to the 2011 census, the birth rate in India declined from 36 per 1,000 in 1981 to 30.5 in 1991 and then to 26 in 2001 and finally to 22.22 in 2011 

 The rural-urban differential has also narrowed over these years. However, the Birth Rate has continued to be higher in rural areas compared to urban areas in the last five decades. Figure-2 below shows the level of estimated Birth Rate for India over the last ten years. Birth Rate has declined by about 11% in the last decade, from 21.6 in 2012 to 19.3 in 2021. The corresponding decline in rural areas is 23.1 to 20.9 (about 10% decline) and for urban areas, it is from 17.4 to 15.9 (about 9% decline).

In 2021, the highest Birth Rate has been observed at 25.6 in Bihar, whereas Andaman & Nicobar Islands has the lowest Birth Rate of 10.6.

Reasons for high birth rate in India: 

o   Early marriages are one of the major causes for the high birth rate. 

o   Poverty and illiteracy are two other factors. Children are seen as additional working hands in poorer families. 

o   Preference for a male child. 

o   High infant mortality. 

o   Lack of sex education and access to birth control. 

o   Lack of autonomy and agency for women. 

 Death Rate

Mortality is one of the basic components of population change and the related data is essential for demographic studies and public health administration.

The Death Rate is one of the simplest measures of mortality and is defined as the number of deaths per thousand population in a given region and time period. The Death Rate in India has witnessed a significant decline over the last five decades from 14.9 in 1971 to 6.0 in 2020.

However, Death Rate has increased for the year 2021 to 7.5 per thousand population. The Death Rate for rural area has increased from 6.4 in 2020 to 7.9 in 2021. The relative increase in urban area in 2021 is 6.6 from 5.1 in 2020. The following Figure-3 indicates the Death Rate at rural, urban and all India level for the past ten years

In 2021, Chhattisgarh has recorded the highest Death Rate of 10.1, whereas the lowest Death Rate has been recorded in Delhi and Chandigarh at 5.4.

 Factors responsible for decrease in Death rate 

(Before Covid-19 )

• Improved medical facilities and health care  
• Better nutrition levels: helped reduce deaths due to starvation, malnutrition etc. 
• Better living standard. 

• Access to clean drinking water: helped reducing deaths due to water borne diseases 
• Control of infectious diseases: Several bacterial and viral diseases can be treated by antibiotics. 
• Decrease in Infant mortality: Due to better public health care, more and more people survive up to reproductive age. These measures also caused decline in infant mortality rate. Infant mortality rate (IMR) and maternal mortality rate. 
• Better sanitation and Community health schemes: These have increased average lifespan.  
• Improvement in Agriculture: It included mechanization of agriculture; use of disease free, hybrid and high yielding varieties of seeds; and use of fertilizers and pesticides etc. These have tremendously increased food production and availability. This has guaranteed adequate food for all. 
  
  

Over the last 50 years, crude death rate of India was declining at a moderating rate to shrink from 17.19 deaths per thousand population in 1970 to 7.19 deaths per thousand population in 2019.  

Migration:

Migration is usually defined as a geographical movement of people involving a change from their usual place of residence. Everett Lee, a well-known demographer, defines migration broadly “as a permanent or semi-permanent change of residence”. According to Eisenstadt, migration refers to “the physical transition of an individual or a group from one society to another. According to the website of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India, “When a person is enumerated in Census at a different place than his/her place of birth, she/he is considered a ‘migrant’. 

The total number of internal migrants in India, as per the 2011 census, is 45.36 crore or 37% of the country’s population. The size of the workforce is estimated to have exceeded 50 crore in 2016 — the Economic Survey pegged the size of the migrant workforce at roughly 20 per cent of workforce or over 10 crore in 2016. Migration plays an important role in the distribution of the population of any country, and determines the growth of labour force in any area

Forms of Migration:

Characteristics of migration:  

·        An important characteristic is the age selectivity of the migrants. Generally, young people are more mobile. Most migration studies, especially in developing countries, have found that rural-urban migrants are predominantly young adults and relatively better educated than those who remain at the place of origin. a major part of the female migration consequential to marriage occurs at the young adult ages. Thus people have a tendency to move when they are between their teens and their mid-thirties (15-35 years) than at other ages. 

·        Another important characteristic is that the migrants have a tendency to move to those places where they have contracts and where the previous migrants serve as links for the new migrants, and this chain is thus formed in the process, and is usually called chain migration. 

 In India, the migrants are classified into four migration streams, namely: 

·        Rural to rural:  People moving from one rural area to another accounted for over half of the total internal migrants (53.84%)- census 2011 

·        Rural to urban: migrants accounted for 20% of the total migrants - census 2011 

·        Urban to urban:  migrants accounted for 20% of the total migrants- census 2011 

·        Urban to rural.  

 2011 Census data on migration:  

·         The most common reason for migration in India is marriage. 46% of the total migrants moved because of marriage and of these, 97% were women.  

·        People moving from one rural area to another accounted for over half of the total internal migrants (53.84%), while rural to urban and urban to urban migration accounted for about 20% each.  

·        About 1.77% people migrated for education. 

·         Among men, work and business account for one-third of total migrations, which is also the single largest reason for migration among men. While migration for marriage among women is skewed towards closer distances, men do not seem to factor in distance while migrating for work. 

 Reasons for migration:  

·        Economic factors: 

o   The push factors  are those that compel or force a person, due to various reasons, to leave that place and go to some other place. For example, adverse economic conditions caused by poverty, low productivity, unemployment, exhaustion of natural resources and natural calamities may compel people to leave their native place in search of better economic opportunities. An ILO study reveals that the main push factor causing the worker to leave agriculture is the lower levels of income. 

o   Pull factors  refer to those factors which attract the migrants to an area, such as, opportunities for better employment, higher wages, better working conditions and better amenities of life, etc. There is generally city ward migration, when rapid expansion of industry, commerce and business takes place. Sometimes the migrants are also attracted to cities in search of better cultural and entertainment activities or bright city lights. However, pull factors operate not only in the rural-urban migration, but also in other types of internal as well as international migration. 

o   Push back factors: In India, according to Asish Bose, the urban labour force is sizable, and the urban unemployment rates are high, and there also exist pools of underemployed persons. All these factors act in combination as deterrents to the fresh flow of migration from the rural to urban areas. 

·        Socio-cultural-political factors: Improved communication facilities, such as, transportation, impact of the radio and the television, the cinema, the urban-oriented education and resultant change in attitudes and values also promote migration. Sometimes even political factors encourage or discourage migration. For instance, in our country, the adoption of the jobs for ‘sons of the soil policy’ by the State governments will certainly affect the migration from other states. eg. The Haryana State Employment of Local Candidates act 2020, reserving 75% of jobs in the private sector(with certain caveats) in the state,will affect migration to Haryana from other states. 

Causes of migration: 

·        Employment 

o   Seasonal migration: It is estimated that approximately 100 million people undertake short-term migration¹ annually in India.  

o   Circular migration: Circular migration or repeat migration is the temporary and usually repetitive movement of a migrant worker between home and host areas, typically for the purpose of employment.   

·        Education: As per census 2011, a total of 32,96,340 men and 21,61,216 women have migrated in India because of education. Men constitute 60.4% and Women 39.6% of these migrants who did so for the purpose of education. 

·        Safety: In 2018, 11 million people were newly displaced, either as refugees or internally displaced people due to wars and internal conflict. E.g.. people fleeing war from Afghanistan, Syria.  Years of economic and political stability in Venezuela caused millions of Venezuelans to leave the country between 2014 and the end of 2019. 

·        Environment and disaster related: In 2018, of the total new 28 million internally displaced people in 148 countries, 61 per cent were due to disasters. According to study by IIT-KGP 2.9 million people in India were displaced due to climate change. 

·        Escape from caste-discrimination and untouchability in rural areas. The anonymity of  cities provides an easy escape form caste-based discriminations. 

Consequences of migration: 

o    Economic:

o   Migration from a region characterised by labour surplus helps to increase the average productivity of labour in that region, as this encourages labour-saving devices and/or greater work participation by the remaining family workers.  

o   There is an alternative view that migration would widen the development disparity between the regions, because of the drain of the resourceful persons from the relatively underdeveloped region to the more developed region. As long as migration draws upon the surplus labour, it would help the emigrating region. It will have adverse effects only if human resources are drained away at the cost of the development of the region. 

o   When migration draws away the unemployed or underemployed, it would enable the remaining population of the region to improve their living conditions as this would enable the remaining population to increase the per capita consumption. 

o   The labour-sending regions may gain economically by the money brought in(remittances) by the emigrants. 

E.g..  Increase in migration to the Middle East has resulted in steep rise in the remittances of foreign money in our country. 

On the other hand, the outflow of people has caused labour shortages and has pushed wages upwards.  

·        Demographic:  Migration of the unmarried males of young working age results in imbalances in sex ratio. The absence of many young men from the villages increases the proportion of other groups, such as, women, children and old people. 

·          Social and Psychological:

o   Urban life usually brings about certain social changes in the migrants. Migrants who return occasionally or remain in contact with the households of their origin are likely to transmit some new ideas back to the areas of origin 

o   Migrants bring money as well as knowledge and experience of different production techniques, and this may lead to mechanisation and commercialisation of agricultural activity.  

o   Contact with the urban and different cultures brings attitudinal change in the migrants, helps them to develop more modern orientation, including even the consumerist culture in their own areas. 

o   Migration which results in the absence of the adult males for long periods of time may cause dislocation of the family. 

 Challenges faced by internal migrants in India: 

o   Migrants are more vulnerable to discrimination and exploitation as many of them are poor, illiterate and live in slums and hazardous locations prone to disaster and natural calamities. 

o   Lack of affordable housing. Unaffordable rents in slums force migrants to live at their workplaces (such as construction sites), pavements or in open areas in the city. This further aggravates their vulnerability to harassment by the police and other local authorities. In 2015, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs identified migrants in urban areas as the largest population needing housing in cities. 

o   Social exclusion and language barriers are a hindrance to the lives of migrants. 

o   Political exclusion: A 2011 study on the political inclusion of seasonal migrant workers found that 22 percent of seasonal migrant workers in India did not possess voter IDs or have their names in the voter list.  

o   Lack of access to education for children of migrant labourers who are often on the move further aggravates the intergenerational transmission of poverty.  

 Climate change and refugees: 

Environmental migrants are defined as “persons or groups of persons who, predominantly for reasons of sudden or progressive changes in the environment that adversely affect their lives or living conditions, are obliged to leave their habitual homes, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, and who move within their country or abroad. The term disaster displacement “refers to situations, where people are forced or obliged to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of disasters triggered by natural hazards. Such displacement may take the form of spontaneous flight or an evacuation ordered or enforced by authorities. Such displacement can occur within a country, or across international borders. 

At the end of 2019, around 5.1 million people in 95 countries and territories were living in displacement as a result of disasters that happened not only in 2019, but also in previous years. Five countries accounted for nearly 75 per cent of the new internal displacements due to disasters in the first half of 2020: India (2.7 million), Bangladesh (2.5 million), Philippines (811,000), China (791,000) and Somalia (514,000). 

Slow-onset processes such as droughts or sea level rise also increasingly affect people’s mobility. In 2018, the World Bank estimated that three regions (Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia) will generate 143 million more climate migrants by 2050. 

As for India: Increased sea level rise in the inhabited islands of the Sundarbans, drought in central India and extreme floods in the Ganges and Brahmaputra basins are already displacing people. Even a marginal rise in climate migrants to cities could be an urban development challenge. This holds true for two reasons: Indian cities don’t have adequate infrastructure to host migrants and the migrants are unlikely to have the required skills to work in urban areas. 

Parts of Bangladesh  are slowly subsiding into the waters of the Bay of Bengal and facing severe consequences due to effects of climate change. This has well affected the coastal population of Bangladesh, who have been grouped as climate refugees. Due to the inaction of state authorities, such a population is forced to first migrate internally and then externally. The fragile border of Bangladesh and India thus pushes such refugees to the Indian subcontinent, which in turn creates socio-economic and political impact on India. 

Covid-19 and migrants:

Internal migrants:  According to the World bank report ‘COVID-19 Crisis Through a Migration Lens’ , nationwide lockdown in India due to COVID-19 has impacted nearly 40 million internal migrants. A significant chunk of workers in India are interstate migrants. They come from poor, historically disadvantaged castes and classes and work outside suffocating agrarian relations of serfdom and indebtedness, patriarchal norms and stagnant wages in the countryside. But these migrant men and women are adversely incorporated into urban and industrial economies — they work low-paying jobs, do not have formal contracts and are outside the reach of the law. They provide critical labour that sustains India’s economy, but remain on the margins. 

In the already precarious existence, the abrupt lockdown prompted by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and loss of livelihood resulted in a migrant exodus, which has been compared to the great migration during Partition. 

Thousands of them, without any means of transport left to their villages back on foot, dying of starvation, fatigue, and road accidents. The state boundaries became the sites of violent migrant-police encounters, as police resorted to use of brute force on the migrants for having violated the lockdown orders.  

Though, on May 1, 2020, the Central government introduced special Shramik trains to take urban migrants back to their villages, due to train cancellations and exorbitant fares, these special trains brought little relief to urban migrants. 

 International migrants:  

Due to a range of vulnerabilities such as higher incidence of poverty, overcrowded housing conditions, and high concentration in jobs where physical distancing is difficult, immigrants are at a much higher risk of COVID‑19 infection than the native-born. Studies in a number of OECD countries found an infection risk that is at least twice as high as that of the native-born.  

Immigrants are potentially in a more vulnerable position in the labour market due to their generally less stable employment conditions and lower seniority on the job. Studies also suggest that discrimination strongly increases in times of a slack labour market, while networks of contacts – of which migrants have fewer – become more relevant for finding a job. 

The negative impact on immigrants’ labour market outcomes is increased still further by the fact that they are strongly overrepresented in those sectors most affected by the pandemic to date. For example, in the particularly hard-hit hospitality industry, a quarter of employees in the EU are foreign-born, twice their share in overall employment. Low-skilled labour migrants in crowded dormitories have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Examples from Saudi Arabia and Singapore, where the Ministries of Health have provided official data on the migration status of individuals who tested positive, show the differential exposure to the virus of the migrant population.  In light of growing unemployment and the role of international travel in the initial spread of the pandemic, there is a risk of a backlash in public opinion against immigrants.