The Demographic Structure of the Indian Society

The theory of demographic transition says that population growth is linked to the level of economic development. It describes three stages:

1. First stage: a backward, underdeveloped society has high birth rates and high death rates, so population growth is low.
2. Transitional stage: death rates fall quickly because of better public health, disease control, and nutrition, but birth rates fall slowly because reproductive behaviour changes more slowly. So the difference between birth and death rates becomes very large.
3. Third stage: in a developed society, both birth and death rates are low, so growth again becomes small.

The transition period is associated with a population explosion because mortality declines rapidly, but fertility remains high for some time. This creates a big gap between birth rate and death rate, so the population increases very fast.

Malthus believed that population grows in geometric progression while food and other means of subsistence grow only in arithmetic progression. So, according to him, population would always grow faster than food supply.

Because of this imbalance, he thought humanity would remain poor and that catastrophic events like famines and epidemics were inevitable. These were what he called positive checks—nature’s way of reducing population when it became larger than the available food supply. He also believed that voluntary controls on population growth, such as delaying marriage or abstinence, would not be sufficient.

The birth rate is the number of live births per 1000 population in a given area during a given period, usually one year. The death rate is the number of deaths per 1000 population in a given area during a given period.

The birth rate is slow to fall because it is a sociocultural phenomenon. Family size changes slowly and depends on factors like prosperity, education, awareness, and the decline of infant mortality. Even when conditions improve, people do not change reproductive behaviour immediately.

The death rate declines much faster because it is affected more directly by improvements in medical facilities, public health, sanitation, vaccination, disease control, and better nutrition. Once these improve, mortality can fall quickly, while birth rates take longer to adjust.