Question

There are wide regional variations in the age structure in India. Elaborate on the reasons for the said phenomena.

Answer 1

There are wide-regional variations in the age-structure in India for the following reasons-

• Literacy is not equally distributed in all the states of our country. Thus, there are some states that are more aware and educated compared to others. Hence, in such states, the fertility levels are low. They, thus, experience a favourable age-structure.
• Certain states have a strong belief in social preference for a male child. These people thus raise the fertility levels in the ** for a male child.
• Since development level in all states is not equal, if the rate is high for lack of infrastructure, the birth rates tend to be high to compensate for the high rates. This also creates for an unfavourable age structure.
• Thus, we have states like Kerala which exhibits age-structure similar to a developed nation compared with Uttar Pradesh which has very high proportions of younger age groups.