If you were to browse a table of a recent period showing life expectancy at birth for all categories of rural-urban and male-female divisions for all States of India, you are not likely to observe that 1. Urban life expectancy is higher than the rural one. 2. Male life expectancy is higher than the female one. Select the correct answer using the code given below:
- (a)1 only
- (b)2 only
- (c)Both 1 and 2
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2
Correct — B, 2 only. The stem asks what you would NOT see in such a table, so the answer is the claim that fails. Statement 2 fails: in India female life expectancy at birth runs above male, not below. World Bank figures for India put female life expectancy at 73·3 years against 70·2 for males in 2022, a gap of about three years, and the same direction holds across the series — 72·3 against 69·3 in 2019, 73·6 against 70·5 in 2023. The gap is partly biological, since female survival advantage appears in almost every population on earth, and partly behavioural, with men more exposed to tobacco, alcohol, road injury and occupational hazard. Statement 1, by contrast, is the ordinary pattern the examiner expects you to accept: urban life expectancy sits above rural, which is why the key stops at statement 2 alone.
- (a)1 only — This says the urban-above-rural pattern is the surprising one. It is not — better access to hospitals, institutional delivery, immunisation and piped water keeps urban life expectancy above rural in India's life tables, which is exactly why the key treats statement 1 as something you would observe.
- (c)Both 1 and 2 — Marking both would mean the table shows rural life expectancy above urban as well. Only one of the two claims is the odd one out, and it is the male-above-female claim.
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2 — Marking neither would mean you would expect to see men outliving women in an Indian life table. You would not; the female figure has been the higher one for decades.
Life expectancy at birth is the average number of years a newborn would live if the death rates of the current period held for the rest of its life. It is not a forecast for any individual and it is not the age at which people die; it is a summary of today's mortality. In India it is estimated from the Sample Registration System, which publishes abridged life tables broken down by State, by rural and urban residence and by sex — precisely the table this question describes.
Two habits of thought get punished here. The first is skipping the negative in the stem: the question asks what you are NOT likely to observe, so the correct option is the false claim, not the true one. The second is importing a general sense that men do better on Indian social indicators. On survival they do not. Female disadvantage in India shows up in the sex ratio at birth and in child sex ratios, which is a different statistic altogether; once past infancy, women outlive men, and the all-India life table has shown a female advantage for a long time. Note also the stem's careful register — it says 'not likely to observe' rather than 'never', which is the right way to speak about a table with dozens of State-level cells.
- World Bank data for India, 2022: female life expectancy at birth 73·3 years, male 70·2, total 71·7.
- The female advantage persists across the series — 2019 was 72·3 against 69·3, and 2023 was 73·6 against 70·5.
- The 2021 figures dip sharply for both sexes, reflecting the pandemic, before recovering in 2022.
- In India, life expectancy by residence and sex is estimated from the Sample Registration System's abridged life tables.
- Life expectancy at birth is one of the three dimensions of the Human Development Index, alongside education and income.
One claim matches the data and one contradicts it; the negative stem makes the contradicting one the answer.
- Missing the negative in the stem and marking the true statement instead of the false one.
- Carrying the female disadvantage in sex ratio over to life expectancy, where the direction reverses.
- Quoting a single year without noticing the 2021 pandemic dip, which briefly pulled both figures down.
As a negative statements item on rural-urban and male-female patterns, or as a direct question on which is higher in India.
CDS_GK_2021_II_Q502021According to UNDP's Human Development Report – 2020, in which of the HDI components has India improved in recent years? 1. Life expectancy at birth 2. Expected years of schooling 3. GNI per capita 4. Mean years of schooling Select the correct answer using the code given below :
- (a) 1 and 2 only
- (b) 2 and 3 only
- (c) 1 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
Answer(c) 1 and 3 only
The same indicator seen from the composite-index side. Life expectancy at birth is one of the three dimensions of human development, and knowing how India's figure has been moving is what both questions reward.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In India, life expectancy at birth is estimated primarily from which one of the following?
- (a)The decennial Census
- (b)The Sample Registration System
- (c)The National Family Health Survey
- (d)The Periodic Labour Force Survey
Answer(b) The Sample Registration System — it produces the abridged life tables by State, residence and sex.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following statements about life expectancy at birth in India is correct?
- (a)It is higher for males than for females
- (b)It is higher for females than for males
- (c)It is identical for both sexes
- (d)It is higher for rural than for urban areas
Answer(b) It is higher for females than for males — about 73 years against 70 in recent World Bank figures.