Demographic Attributes (Demographics)

• Demography (Greek demos, people, and graphein, to describe) is the statistical study of human population: its size, structure, distribution and change over space and time.
• Demographic attributes are the measurable characteristics of a population, such as age, sex, literacy, occupation, religion, longevity and place of residence. Together they describe its composition and quality.
• Population geography studies how these attributes vary from place to place and what the variation says about development, culture and the pressure of people on resources.

Demography and Demographic Attributes

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Demography and Its Three Processes

• Population changes through three processes:
  • Fertility (births) adds people. It is the most variable component and largely sets the age structure.
  • Mortality (deaths) removes people. Its level reflects health, nutrition and living conditions.
  • Migration moves people between places. It redistributes population and reshapes local age and sex structures.
• They are linked by the balancing equation:
  • Population at time 2 = population at time 1 + births − deaths + in-migrants − out-migrants.
  • Births minus deaths is natural increase. In India the SRS put the natural growth rate at 11.9 per 1000 in 2024 (birth rate 18.3, death rate 6.4).
• The main statistical indicators of a population follow from these processes:
  • Size and growth rate: the total number and its rate of increase or decline.
  • Density: persons per unit area, a first measure of pressure on land.
  • Age structure and sex ratio: the shape of the population.
  • Fertility, mortality and life expectancy: the vital rates.

Classifying the Attributes

• Two traditions handle the attributes differently:
  • Formal demography works with quantitative measures that can be counted and modelled: sex ratio, literacy rate, birth and death rates.
  • Social demography studies the social, economic and political side: caste, religion, women’s participation in politics and work, household structure.
• A working grouping for the geographer:
  • Biological attributes are fixed at birth or by time: age and sex.
  • Vital attributes measure life events: fertility, mortality, longevity and morbidity.
  • Social and cultural attributes are acquired: literacy and education, religion, language, caste and tribe, marital status, household type.
  • Economic attributes describe work and income: workforce, occupation, income.
  • Spatial attributes describe where people live and move: rural or urban residence, density, migrant status.

Significance

• Vital statistics are the base of planning. Every sector plans from the number and structure of people:
  • Public services: schools from the child population, hospitals from births and the elderly, housing from household formation.
  • The economy: labour supply, consumer demand and pensions from the working and old-age populations.
  • Social policy: gender, poverty and welfare schemes are aimed at groups defined by these attributes.
  • Targets: the SDGs and the National Health Policy 2017 set goals in the same units, such as IMR, MMR and TFR.
• In population and settlement geography, the attributes help to:
  • map regional inequalities in development;
  • explain urbanisation, migration and the settlement hierarchy;
  • judge whether a region is over-, under- or optimally populated relative to its resources.
• The attributes come from a few sources of very different kinds:
  • the decennial Census, which counts everyone but only every ten years;
  • the Sample Registration System (SRS), which gives annual birth and death rates from a large sample;
  • civil registration of births and deaths, and household surveys such as NFHS and PLFS.
  • Their strengths and gaps are discussed among the sources of population data.
• Demography thus links population processes with the spatial organisation of society.

Composition Attributes

Age Structure

• Age structure is the distribution of a population across age groups, usually in three broad bands:
  • 0–14 years: children, the young dependants.
  • 15–64 years: the working-age population.
  • 65 years and above: the old dependants. Some Indian measures use 60+.
• It predicts future growth, labour supply, the dependency burden and the stage of the demographic transition.
• The dependency ratio relates the two dependent groups to the working group:
  • Total dependency ratio = (population 0–14 + population 65+) ÷ population 15–64 × 100.
  • It splits into a young (child) dependency ratio and an old-age dependency ratio. Poor countries carry mainly the first, rich countries increasingly the second.
  • India’s 2025 values were about 35 young and 11 old dependants per 100 people aged 15–64; Japan’s old-age ratio alone exceeds 50.
• A favourable age structure has a large working-age share and few dependants.
  • The UN treats a country as being in its demographic window when under-15s are below 30% and those 65+ are still below 15% of the population.
  • Such a structure gives a low dependency ratio and room for saving and investment, the basis of the demographic dividend.
• India entered this window in the early 2010s, when its under-15 share fell below 30%.
  • In 2025 about 24% of Indians were under 15, 68% were 15–64 and 7% were 65+. The total dependency ratio was 46 per 100 working-age people (UN WPP 2024), against 54 for the world.
  • The window will close as the elderly share rises; the ageing of India’s population is already well advanced in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
• Most countries today have imbalanced structures:
  • Developing countries (Niger, Afghanistan, much of Africa) are young, from past and present high fertility.
  • Developed countries (Japan, Italy, Germany, South Korea) are old, from low fertility and long life.
• Median age, the ageing index and the global pattern belong to the age composition of the population.

Age Structure and the Demographic Transition

• The age–sex pyramid shows age and sex together: males on the left, females on the right, the youngest at the base.
• Its shape follows the stage of the demographic transition:
  • Stage 1, high stationary (primitive profile):
    • High birth and death rates; frequent epidemics and famines; low life expectancy.
    • A broad base and a sharply tapering, short pyramid. Pre-industrial societies.
  • Stage 2, early expanding:
    • The death rate falls with better food and medicine; the birth rate stays high, so growth is rapid.
    • The base stays broad but the pyramid grows taller as more people survive. Europe in the Industrial Revolution; much of Sub-Saharan Africa today.
  • Stage 3, late expanding (barrel-shaped):
    • The birth rate declines with education, urbanisation and changing values; the death rate is low.
    • The base narrows and a bulge forms in the working ages: the youth bulge. It becomes a dividend if jobs exist, and a source of unemployment and unrest if they do not. India today.
  • Stages 4–5, low stationary and declining (constrictive or inverted):
    • Births equal or fall below deaths; growth stops or turns negative.
    • A narrow base and a wide top: an ageing population. Japan, Germany, Italy.

• Uses of the pyramid:
  • It shows the share of dependants and so the dependency ratio: a high ratio means a heavier load on earners.
  • It reveals the future labour force, which guides employment and skill planning.
  • It supports age-specific planning: schools from the child population, maternity and child care from births, pensions and geriatric care from the elderly.
  • It helps commercial planning: a young market buys education and consumer goods; an old one buys health care and services.
• Real pyramids of countries, and the way wars, famines and migration mark them, are treated under sex composition and the age–sex pyramid.

Sex Composition

• The sex ratio is the balance of males and females. India expresses it as females per 1000 males; the UN uses males per 100 females.
• It is a sensitive indicator of women’s status:
  • An adverse ratio points to son preference, sex-selective abortion, neglect of girls and maternal deaths.
  • A balanced or favourable ratio indicates more equitable social development.
• India:
  • 943 in Census 2011, ranging from 1084 in Kerala to 879 in Haryana.
  • Rural 949 against urban 929, because men migrate to towns alone.
  • The child sex ratio (0–6) fell to 918 in 2011, the clearest sign of sex selection.
  • The sex ratio at birth was 918 in 2022–24 (SRS), still below the natural level of about 950.
• World: about 989 females per 1000 males in 2024, with male surpluses in the Gulf states and female surpluses in Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic states.

Literacy and Education

• Literacy in the Indian Census is the ability of a person aged 7 and above to read and write with understanding in any language.
  • The effective literacy rate divides literates by the population aged 7+; the crude rate divides by the whole population and so understates literacy where children are many.
• It has a two-way relationship with development:
  • Literacy raises employability, health awareness and the use of contraception, and so lowers fertility.
  • Development in turn provides schools and the means to attend them.
• Female literacy matters most. Educated mothers marry later and have fewer, healthier children; it is the strongest single correlate of low infant mortality and fertility across Indian states.
• India: 74.04% in 2011 (male 82.14%, female 65.46%). The NSS 75th round (2017–18) put it at 77.7%.
  • Kerala leads; Bihar and Rajasthan trail, with the widest gender gaps.
• Measures, determinants and the spatial pattern belong to literacy and educational attainment.

Economic Composition

• It divides the population into workers and non-workers, and workers by sector: primary, secondary and tertiary.
  • Census 2011 further divides workers into main workers (six months or more of work in the year) and marginal workers (less than six months).
  • The occupational structure indicates the level of development: the share in agriculture falls as economies diversify.
• The work participation rate (workers as % of population) was 39.8% in 2011: 53.3% for men and only 25.5% for women.
• The Periodic Labour Force Survey shows the female labour force participation rate (15+) rising to 41.7% in 2023–24, largely in rural self-employment.
• Detail is in economic composition and work participation.

Religion, Language, Caste and Tribe

• These are cultural attributes. They shape marriage, fertility, diet, migration and settlement, and mark the cultural regions of a country.
• India (Census 2011):
  • Religion: Hindus 79.8%, Muslims 14.2%, Christians 2.3%, Sikhs 1.7%. Its pattern is the subject of religious composition.
  • Language: 22 scheduled languages; Hindi is the mother tongue of about 43.6%. The north–south and tribal contrasts are part of India’s linguistic diversity.
  • Caste and tribe: Scheduled Castes 16.6% and Scheduled Tribes 8.6% of the population, the subject of caste and tribe composition.
• Household composition (size, joint or nuclear form) and marital status belong here too.
  • Early marriage remains a key fertility attribute: NFHS-6 (2023–24) found 20.1% of women aged 20–24 married before 18, down from 23.3% in NFHS-5 (2019–21).

Rural–Urban Residence and Migrant Status

• Residence separates two demographic regimes:
  • Villages have higher fertility, lower literacy and more workers in agriculture.
  • Towns have lower fertility, a male-selective in-migrant population and a larger working-age share.
• India was 31.14% urban in 2011 (377 million people); UN estimates put it near 35% in 2024. The rural–urban distribution of population has the detail.
• Migrant status records whether a person lives where born. Census 2011 counted about 456 million migrants by place of last residence, about 37% of the population, most of them women moving at marriage. The streams and reasons are part of migration in India.

Vital Attributes

Fertility and Fecundity

• Fecundity is the biological capacity to reproduce; fertility is the actual number of births.
  • Fecundity sets the theoretical upper limit; fertility reflects real behaviour, shaped by marriage, contraception, education and norms.
  • Women aged 15–49 carry the reproductive potential, so refined measures are confined to them.
• Crude birth rate (CBR): live births per 1000 population in a year.
  • Simple, but distorted by the age and sex structure.
  • India 18.3 (2024); Bihar 26.8, Kerala 11.1.
• Total fertility rate (TFR): the average number of children a woman would bear over her reproductive life at current age-specific rates.
  • 2.1 is replacement level in low-mortality populations.
  • India 1.9 (SRS 2024), below replacement since 2020, while Bihar remains at 2.9.
• Net reproduction rate (NRR): the average number of daughters a woman would bear who survive to the mothers’ age. It joins fertility with female mortality.
  • NRR = 1: each generation exactly replaces itself.
  • NRR above 1 means long-run growth; NRR below 1, long-run decline.
  • It depends on the TFR, female mortality and the sex ratio at birth. A TFR of 2.1 gives an NRR of about 1 only where female mortality is low.
• Measures, determinants and patterns are set out in fertility measures and determinants.

Mortality

• Crude death rate (CDR): deaths per 1000 population in a year.
  • Ageing countries can have higher CDRs than poor, young ones: Japan 13.3 against Niger 8.7 (2024).
  • India 6.4 (2024).
• Infant mortality rate (IMR): deaths under age one per 1000 live births, the most sensitive indicator of health and social conditions.
  • India 24 (SRS 2024), down from 129 in 1971; Kerala 8, Chhattisgarh 36.
• Other measures, the life table and world patterns are set out under mortality: measures, trends and patterns.

Life Expectancy (Longevity)

• Life expectancy is the average number of years a person can expect to live under the current age-specific death rates. It is computed from a life table:
  • at birth (e0), the usual summary;
  • or at a given age, such as e60 for pension planning.
• Healthy life expectancy subtracts the years expected to be lived in ill-health; the gap between the two is widening as people live longer with chronic disease.
• It summarises the quality of life, the level of development and the effectiveness of the health system. It is one of the three components of the Human Development Index.

Determinants of Life Expectancy

• Sex:
  • Women live longer almost everywhere, through genetic and hormonal advantages and less risky behaviour.
  • The female advantage shrinks where women marry early and face high maternal mortality, neglect in childhood and poor nutrition.
  • It is widest in the former USSR, where male deaths from alcohol and violence are high.
• Access to health care:
  • Vaccination, institutional delivery and treatment raise longevity.
  • Unequal access gives the rich and urban longer lives than the poor and rural. In India, urban e0 is 73.2 against rural 69.4 (2020–24).
• Nutrition, hygiene and lifestyle:
  • A balanced diet, exercise and safe water and sanitation lengthen life.
  • Tobacco, alcohol, sedentary living and unsafe food shorten it.
• Socio-economic status: income and education bring better housing, care and awareness. This is why developed regions lead.
• Crime, conflict and political instability: violence, the collapse of health systems and displacement cut life expectancy sharply, as in Syria, Yemen, South Sudan and Gaza.
• Genetics: inherited susceptibility to heart disease, cancer, diabetes and stroke.
• Effect on the pyramid:
  • Low life expectancy gives a short pyramid with a narrow top.
  • High life expectancy gives a taller pyramid with a broad top: an ageing population and a rising old-age dependency ratio.

World and Indian Pattern

• World life expectancy was 73.5 years in 2024 (UN WPP 2024), up from 51 in 1960. COVID-19 cut it by almost two years in 2020–21; it had recovered by 2023.
• Highest (83–86 years): Monaco, San Marino, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Japan, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Singapore, Australia.
  • These countries share universal health care, high incomes, healthy diets and strong social security.
• Lowest (below 60): Nigeria (54.6), Chad, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Lesotho, Somalia: all in Sub-Saharan Africa.
  • They suffer from high child and maternal mortality, conflict, HIV and weak health systems.
• Regional trend:
  • East Asia made the fastest gains: China rose from 33 years in 1960, during its famine, to 78.
  • South Asia rose from 46 to 73.
  • Sub-Saharan Africa stalled in the 1990s under HIV/AIDS and has since recovered to about 63.
  • The gap between the longest- and shortest-lived countries is still about 30 years.

• India:
  • 70.6 years in 2020–24 (SRS abridged life tables): female 72.8, male 68.7. It was 49.7 in 1970–75.
  • It is highest in Kerala (75.6) and lowest in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.
  • The UN estimate, made by a different method, is 72.2 (2024).
• Challenges of rising longevity in developing countries:
  • They are growing old before growing rich: pensions cover a small, mostly formal-sector minority.
  • Health systems built for mothers and children must now treat chronic disease in the old, while infections persist.
  • Families shrink and the young migrate, so care of the elderly, long left to families, needs public provision.
• Geographical significance:
  • It is a measure of development and well-being and of regional inequality.
  • It guides health infrastructure, pensions and ageing policy.
  • Rising longevity has social and spatial effects: more widows and elderly living alone, ageing villages left by young out-migrants (Kerala, the Uttarakhand hills), and a shift of demand to geriatric care.

Morbidity

• Morbidity is the state of illness in a population: how often disease occurs in an area over a period.
  • Incidence counts new cases in a period; prevalence counts all existing cases at a point in time.
  • The morbidity rate shows the share of people suffering from a disease and the overall burden of ill-health.
• It covers:
  • Acute conditions: sudden and short, such as infections and heart attacks.
  • Chronic conditions: long-lasting, such as diabetes, cancer and respiratory disease.
  • Injuries and disabilities.
• High morbidity signals poor health conditions and inadequate care, and it lowers productivity.
  • Its causes are nutrition and sanitation, access to care, environment (polluted air and water, disease vectors) and lifestyle (smoking, diet, inactivity).
• India now carries both kinds. NFHS-6 (2023–24) found elevated blood pressure in about 19% of women and 22% of men aged 15+, and high blood sugar in 18% of women and 21% of men, up from 14% and 16% in NFHS-5. Yet 57% of women were anaemic in NFHS-5.
• Because chronic illness often kills slowly, morbidity is measured with disability-adjusted life years (DALYs): years of life lost plus years lived with disability.
• India’s shift from infectious to chronic disease is the subject of the epidemiological and health transition. Stunting, anaemia and health spending are compared among the health indicators of India and the world.