Abstract
This chapter examines key aspects of India’s population, agriculture and labor markets, particularly since independence in 1947. A broad overview of trends in India’s population is provided, including religious composition, age and gender structure, total fertility rate and its association with income, and gender bias in child population. As part of an analysis of India’s demographic transition, India’s current demographic dividend is also examined. Next, the population’s excessive dependence on agriculture is analyzed, and then key aspects of India’s labor market are explored.
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Notes
- 1.
This applies to undivided India before Independence and Partition as well as to the Republic of India and Pakistan (subsequently split into two countries—Pakistan and Bangladesh).
- 2.
Using National Sample Survey (NSS) data for 1993–1994 and 2004–2005 Jha (2014a) highlights the impact of growing incomes, social and household decisions of households, and regional and ethnic factors on patterns of household level fertility in India. These have helped determine the composition of India’s young (aged 9–34) today. Demographic transition is well underway in India with rising incomes associated with fewer children and smaller family size. Households with more women in the age group 26–35 have more children, are more likely to have children than not having them as well as having larger families. Average education of females lowers household size whereas (instrumented) shares of expenditure on education and health have varying effects. Muslim households have more children and are more likely to have larger families. Households in BIMARU states have more children, as do urban households. (The so-called BIMARU states are Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, the coinage relating to a Hindi word “Bimar,” which means sick—referring to the poor economic conditions within those states.) Thus a demographic transition has occurred unevenly across various groups.
- 3.
EAG states are the relatively less well-off states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha.
- 4.
Jha (2014b) provides an overview of the issues involved and the policy responses that may be used to address these challenges.
- 5.
There is considerable debate on the links between farm size and productivity of land in the context of subsistence agriculture: for an early review see Sen (1962). Jha and Rhodes (1999) provide evidence that in the wake of the adoption of the green revolution technology larger farms have been associated with higher technical efficiency.
- 6.
The 1951 figure refers to India whereas figures for prior years refer to India and Pakistan.
- 7.
For a recent review of India’s labor laws and changes that would help increase employment, see Hoda and Rai (2017).
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Jha, R. (2018). Key Aspects of India’s Population, Land and Labor. In: Facets of India's Economy and Her Society Volume I. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56554-9_2
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