India's Population: Size and Composition

The composition

MU asks for composition, and it has six parts. Learn them as a list.

1. Age composition. From Table 8.8 of the Appendix, Census 2011, All India:

Working age, taken as 15 to 59, was therefore about 60 per cent in 2011 and has risen since, which is the arithmetic behind [The Demographic Dividend]. The dependency ratio, the number of persons below 15 and above 59 per hundred in the working ages, was about 65 in 2011 and is falling.

2. Sex composition. The sex ratio is the number of females per thousand males. The child sex ratio, for ages 0 to 6, is the more revealing figure because it is not affected by differences in adult mortality or migration. From the Appendix's own All India row it was 927 in 2001 and 918 in 2011: it fell. A falling child sex ratio in a period of rising incomes and falling infant mortality points to sex selection before birth, and it is the reason the law prohibits prenatal sex determination.

3. Rural and urban composition. India remains majority rural, though the urban share has risen at every census and urban population is growing much faster than rural. Urbanisation matters here because fertility falls faster in cities, and because the costs of urban poverty and of urban services follow it.

4. Literacy composition. Literacy rate at successive censuses, All India: 18.3 per cent in 1951, 28.3, 34.5, 43.6, 52.2, 64.8 and 73.0 per cent in 2011. It is the single clearest improvement in this whole chapter, and it is also the variable most strongly associated with lower fertility.

5. Occupational composition. Treated at length in [The Salient Features of the Indian Economy]: agriculture 42.4 per cent of employment on the Periodic Labour Force Survey for Q2 of FY26, or 46.1 per cent on the survey for July 2023 to June 2024, with 55.8 per cent self employed and 18.9 per cent casual.

6. Regional composition. Population is very unevenly distributed and, more importantly, growing at very different rates across States. The southern and western States reached low fertility much earlier than the northern and eastern ones, so the share of the population living in the north and east is rising. This has consequences well beyond demography, since representation in Parliament and the devolution of central taxes both use population, which is why [The Finance Commission] has to weigh population against demographic performance.

Density and distribution

Density is population per square kilometre. India's density is among the highest for a country of its size, and it is very unevenly distributed: the Gangetic plain and the coastal strips are densely settled, the desert, the hills and the forested centre are not.

Why density matters for this syllabus. It is the pressure of population on land in [The Causes of Low Agricultural Productivity], and it is the reason holdings are small and become smaller.

A worked example: what the age structure means for one district

The district. One lakh people, with the national age structure of 2011.

The arithmetic. About 30,800 are under 15, about 60,000 are between 15 and 59, and about 8,600 are 60 or over. So about 60,000 people of working age support about 39,400 who are not, a dependency ratio of about 65 per hundred.

Twenty years on, if fertility stays at 1.9. The cohort now aged 0 to 14 moves into the working ages, and the cohort behind it is smaller, because each woman is having fewer than two children. The working age share rises further and the child share falls. The dependency ratio falls, and the district has its demographic dividend.

Forty years on. The large cohorts now in the working ages reach 60. The child cohorts behind them are small. The dependency ratio rises again, but this time it is old age dependency rather than child dependency, and old age dependency is more expensive, because the elderly need pensions and health care rather than schools.

What the district must do with the window. Educate and employ the large working age cohort now, because the tax and savings they generate are what will pay for their own old age. That is the argument of [The Demographic Dividend] in one district.

What beginners get wrong

"India's population is exploding." It was growing very fast between 1961 and 1981. The total fertility rate is now 1.9, below replacement, the birth rate has fallen from 21.4 to 18.4 per thousand between 2013 and 2023, and the absolute decadal increase has stopped rising. India will keep growing for some years because of population momentum, and then stop.

"A large population is a burden." It is a burden if it is dependent and unskilled, and an asset if it is of working age, educated and employed. That is precisely the dividend argument, and the answer depends on policy rather than on numbers.

"Sex ratio and child sex ratio are the same." The sex ratio covers all ages and is affected by differential mortality and migration. The child sex ratio for ages 0 to 6 isolates what is happening at and just after birth, and it fell from 927 to 918 between 2001 and 2011.

"The 2011 figures are current." They are the last completed census. Every later figure is a projection, and figures from the sample registration system, such as birth and death rates, come from a different instrument altogether.

Limits of the data

No census since 2011. Age structure, sex ratio, literacy, rural and urban shares and district populations are all fifteen years old, and the projections used in their place carry the assumptions of whoever made them.

Different instruments give different numbers. The census counts; the sample registration system estimates vital rates from a sample; the Periodic Labour Force Survey estimates employment. A figure from one cannot be compared with a figure from another without care.

Averages conceal enormous State variation. A national total fertility rate of 1.9 combines States well below it with States still above replacement, and the policy question is entirely about the second group.

Migration is poorly measured, which matters most for urban populations and for the States that send and receive migrants.

Quick revision

1. Size: Census population 36.11 crore in 1951 to 121.09 crore in 2011. More than tripled. The decadal absolute increase stopped rising after 1991. No census since 2011, so later figures are projections.
2. Vital rates, All India, 2013 to 2023: birth rate 21.4 to 18.4; death rate 7.0 to 6.4; infant mortality 40 to 25; total fertility rate 2.3 to 1.9.
3. TFR 1.9 is below the replacement level of about 2.1. India continues to grow only because of population momentum.
4. Life expectancy at birth: 70.3 years for 2019-23, male 68.5 and female 72.5.
5. Age composition, Census 2011: 0 to 14 about 30.8 per cent; 15 to 34 about 34.8; 35 to 59 about 25.4; 60 and above about 8.6. Working age 15 to 59 about 60 per cent; dependency ratio about 65.
6. Child sex ratio, 0 to 6: 927 in 2001 to 918 in 2011, a fall.
7. Literacy: 18.3 per cent in 1951 to 73.0 per cent in 2011.
8. Six elements of composition: age, sex, rural and urban, literacy, occupation, and region.
9. Source for all of it: Office of the Registrar General of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, through the Statistical Appendix to the Economic Survey 2025-26.

Test yourself

1. Describe the growth of India's population since 1951. The census population rose from 36.11 crore in 1951 to 43.92 crore in 1961, 54.82 crore in 1971, 68.33 crore in 1981, 84.64 crore in 1991, 102.87 crore in 2001 and 121.09 crore in 2011, so it more than tripled in sixty years. The rate of growth was highest between 1961 and 1981 and has fallen since, and the absolute increase per decade, which had risen at every census, stopped rising after 2001: the addition was 16.31 crore between 1981 and 1991, 18.23 crore between 1991 and 2001 and 18.22 crore between 2001 and 2011. Since the census due after 2011 has not been completed, all later figures are projections.

2. What is the total fertility rate, what is India's, and why does it matter so much? The total fertility rate is the average number of children a woman would bear over her reproductive life at prevailing age specific fertility rates. India's was 2.3 in 2013 and 1.9 in 2023. It matters because the replacement level, at which each generation exactly replaces itself allowing for mortality, is about 2.1, so India is now below replacement. A population with below replacement fertility will eventually stop growing and then decline; India continues to grow only because an unusually large number of women are currently in the child bearing ages, an effect known as population momentum. The consequence for this topic is that the policy question has moved from restraining growth to using the working age population well before it ages.

3. Set out the age composition of India's population and explain the dependency ratio. At the Census of 2011, of a total of 121.09 crore, about 37.24 crore or 30.8 per cent were aged 0 to 14, about 42.20 crore or 34.8 per cent were 15 to 34, about 30.81 crore or 25.4 per cent were 35 to 59, and about 10.38 crore or 8.6 per cent were 60 and above. Taking 15 to 59 as the working ages gives a working age share of about 60 per cent. The dependency ratio is the number of persons outside the working ages, that is below 15 and above 59, per hundred persons within them; it was about 65 in 2011 and has fallen since, because the child share is falling faster than the elderly share is rising. A falling dependency ratio means more earners relative to dependants, which is the arithmetic of the demographic dividend.

4. What is the child sex ratio, why is it preferred to the general sex ratio, and what has happened to it? The child sex ratio is the number of females per thousand males in the age group 0 to 6. It is preferred to the general sex ratio for detecting discrimination because it is not distorted by differences in adult mortality between the sexes or by migration, so it reflects what happens at birth and in the first years of life. In India it fell from 927 in 2001 to 918 in 2011. A decline of that kind in a period when incomes were rising and infant mortality falling cannot be explained by poverty or by lack of medical care, and points instead to sex selection, which is why prenatal determination of sex is prohibited by law.

5. Describe the composition of India's population. Age: young, with about 30.8 per cent below 15 and about 60 per cent in the working ages of 15 to 59 at the 2011 census. Sex: adverse to females, with a child sex ratio of 918 in 2011 against 927 in 2001. Rural and urban: still majority rural, but with the urban share rising at every census and urban population growing faster. Literacy: risen from 18.3 per cent in 1951 to 73.0 per cent in 2011. Occupation: agriculture still the largest employer at 42.4 per cent of employment on the Periodic Labour Force Survey for Q2 of FY26, with 55.8 per cent of workers self employed and 18.9 per cent casual. Region: very unevenly distributed, and growing at markedly different rates, since fertility fell much earlier in the southern and western States than in the northern and eastern ones.

6. Why is the absence of a census since 2011 a serious limitation? Because the census is the only complete enumeration and the source of the age structure, the sex ratio, literacy, the rural and urban split and every district level figure. Without a more recent one, all such figures are fifteen years old and every intervening figure, including per capita income and the denominators of most rates, rests on projections that carry the assumptions of whoever prepared them. It also matters administratively, because population is used in the allocation of parliamentary seats, in the devolution formula recommended by the Finance Commission and in the coverage of statutory entitlements such as those under the National Food Security Act, so an out of date count has distributional consequences and not merely statistical ones.