MPSC 2021 Prelims Q48: Which of the following is true regarding Indian population

Q: What is the answer to MPSC 2021 Prelims Q48?

(3). Correct — option (3): both printed statements are true, and they are two faces of the same demographic turn. Statement (a) says the annual population growth rate has been declining, and the census series shows it plainly. India's decadal growth was 21.5 per cent over 1991 to 2001 and fell to 17.9 per cent over 2001 to 2011 — the sharpest fall between two censuses since independence, and part of a decline that has continued since. The engine behind it is fertility. The total fertility rate, the number of children an average woman would bear over her lifetime at current rates, has fallen decade after decade and the fifth National Family Health Survey put it at 2.0, which is below the replacement level of about 2.1. Statement (b) says the share of India's young population has started declining, and this is the second face of the same fall. When fewer children are born each year, the youngest age groups stop expanding first, and the effect works its way up the age pyramid. India's under-five population peaked around 2007 and the under-fifteen cohort peaked around 2011; since then the number of children — not merely their share of the population — has been falling, and the 0-14 group was about a quarter of the population by 2021 against much larger shares in earlier decades. The median age has risen accordingly, to roughly thirty. Note carefully what the two statements do not say. Neither says the population is falling. India's total population has continued to grow throughout, because a young age structure carries momentum: even at replacement-level fertility, a large cohort of women already born keeps the number of births high for decades. A growth rate can decline while the total it applies to still rises, and holding those two ideas together is the whole of this question. Both statements standing, the row that accepts them both is option (3).

MPSC 2021 Prelims Paper-I · Question 48 of 100

State Services Preliminary Examination 2021, held 23 January 2022. Transcribed from the commission's own booklet (संच A); answer as per the official MPSC final answer key.

Which of the following is true regarding Indian population ? (a) Annual population growth rate has been declining. (b) Share of India's young population has started declining.

(1)(a) only is correct.
(2)(b) only is correct.
(3)(a) and (b) both are correct.
(4)(a) and (b) both are incorrect.

Answer

(3)

Why

Correct — option (3): both printed statements are true, and they are two faces of the same demographic turn. Statement (a) says the annual population growth rate has been declining, and the census series shows it plainly. India's decadal growth was 21.5 per cent over 1991 to 2001 and fell to 17.9 per cent over 2001 to 2011 — the sharpest fall between two censuses since independence, and part of a decline that has continued since. The engine behind it is fertility. The total fertility rate, the number of children an average woman would bear over her lifetime at current rates, has fallen decade after decade and the fifth National Family Health Survey put it at 2.0, which is below the replacement level of about 2.1. Statement (b) says the share of India's young population has started declining, and this is the second face of the same fall. When fewer children are born each year, the youngest age groups stop expanding first, and the effect works its way up the age pyramid. India's under-five population peaked around 2007 and the under-fifteen cohort peaked around 2011; since then the number of children — not merely their share of the population — has been falling, and the 0-14 group was about a quarter of the population by 2021 against much larger shares in earlier decades. The median age has risen accordingly, to roughly thirty. Note carefully what the two statements do not say. Neither says the population is falling. India's total population has continued to grow throughout, because a young age structure carries momentum: even at replacement-level fertility, a large cohort of women already born keeps the number of births high for decades. A growth rate can decline while the total it applies to still rises, and holding those two ideas together is the whole of this question. Both statements standing, the row that accepts them both is option (3).

Why the others are wrong

(1)(a) only is correct. — This option accepts the falling growth rate and rejects the falling share of the young, and it is the likelier of the two half-answers because 'India is a young country' is a phrase every candidate has read a hundred times. The phrase is about a level, not a direction, and both can be true at once: India's population is still young by comparison with China, Japan or Europe, and it is ageing steadily all the same. The evidence for the direction is the census and survey series rather than any single striking number — the under-five population peaked around 2007, the under-fifteen cohort peaked around 2011, and the 0-14 share had fallen to roughly a quarter by 2021 while the median age rose towards thirty. There is a further reason candidates resist this statement: the demographic dividend is usually discussed as something India is about to enjoy, which sounds like a population getting younger. It is the opposite — the dividend arrives precisely because the share of children falls and the share of working-age adults rises.
(2)(b) only is correct. — This option accepts the falling share of the young and rejects the falling growth rate, and it is usually chosen by a candidate who has confused a level with a rate. India's population has kept growing in absolute terms and passed 1.4 billion, so the word 'declining' attached to population feels wrong; but the statement is about the growth rate, and that has been falling for four decades. The census figures make the distinction concrete: decadal growth of 21.5 per cent for 1991-2001 fell to 17.9 per cent for 2001-2011, which is a large absolute increase in people arriving at a slower and slower pace. Total fertility has fallen below replacement, and the total nonetheless continues to rise because of population momentum. The habit worth building is to ask, of every demographic sentence, whether it speaks of a stock, a flow or a rate of change of a flow — most errors in this part of the syllabus are the result of answering a question about one of the three with a fact about another.
(4)(a) and (b) both are incorrect. — This option rejects both statements, and each half of the rejection contradicts the published record. The census series shows decadal growth falling from 21.5 per cent to 17.9 per cent between the last two counts; the national family health surveys show total fertility down to about 2.0, below replacement; and the age data show the under-fifteen cohort past its peak with the median age rising. A candidate arrives here by reasoning from headlines about India's population passing China's — which the United Nations estimated happened during 2023, after this paper was written — and concluding that everything about Indian population must be rising. That inference confuses the size of a population with the speed at which it grows. It is also worth remembering that the decennial census due in 2021 was postponed, so Census 2011 was still the most recent full count when this paper was set, and the direction of both trends was nonetheless well established from it and from the intervening surveys.

Concept

India is passing through the demographic transition, the sequence in which a society moves from high birth and death rates to low ones. Death rates fell first, from the 1920s onwards, with famine control, vaccination and antibiotics; birth rates followed much later and much more slowly, and the gap between the two curves is the period of rapid population growth that India has been living through. The country is now in the later stage of that gap: fertility has fallen below replacement while mortality is already low, so the growth rate is declining decade by decade. Two consequences follow, and they are examined constantly. The first is population momentum — a population with a young age structure keeps growing for decades after fertility reaches replacement, because the women who will bear the next generation have already been born, which is why India's total continues to rise while its growth rate falls. The second is the demographic dividend, the window in which the share of the working-age population rises because the share of children has fallen and the share of the elderly has not yet risen. That window is opened by exactly the trend statement (b) describes, and it closes as the same cohorts age; states differ sharply in where they stand within it, with the southern states and Maharashtra well ahead of the northern states in the transition. The dividend is an opportunity rather than a guarantee, since it delivers growth only if the extra workers find productive employment, and India's youth unemployment and low female labour force participation are the standard objections raised against assuming it.

Population is one of the most reliably examined topics in MPSC's economy and geography sections, because Census 2011, the Sample Registration System and the National Family Health Surveys supply an abundance of checkable numbers. What makes this particular item worth studying is that it needs no number at all: both statements are about directions, and a candidate who understands the demographic transition can settle them without recalling a single figure. That is the Commission's usual design here — a conceptual item dressed as a factual one. The two-statement format also rewards the same mechanical discipline as the rest of this paper: judge each statement alone, mark it, then read the row that matches. Note that the stem prints 'true' in bold in the English column and 'खरे' in the Marathi, so it is asking which statements hold, not which fail. And note what an examinee should not read into the option set: in a two-statement question all four rows must be printed as a matter of logic, so the presence of a both-correct row and a both-incorrect row tells a candidate nothing whatever about which is right.

Key facts

India's decadal population growth fell from 21.5 per cent over 1991-2001 to 17.9 per cent over 2001-2011, and the decline has continued since; the census due in 2021 was postponed, leaving Census 2011 as the most recent full count when this paper was set.
The total fertility rate has fallen below the replacement level of about 2.1 — the fifth National Family Health Survey put it at 2.0 — which is the mechanism driving the fall in the growth rate.
India's under-five population peaked around 2007 and the under-fifteen cohort around 2011, so the number of children as well as their share has been falling; the 0-14 group was about a quarter of the population by 2021 and the median age had risen to roughly thirty.
Population momentum explains why the total keeps rising while the growth rate falls: a young age structure means a large number of women of childbearing age already born, so births stay high for decades after fertility reaches replacement.
The demographic dividend is the window in which the working-age share of the population is at its highest, opened by the fall in the child share and closed by the rise in the elderly share; the United Nations estimated that India passed China as the world's most populous country during 2023, after this paper was written.

Both statements are about DIRECTION, not level — settle them from the demographic transition and no figure is needed

(a) Annual population growth rate has been declining→TRUE — decadal growth was 21.5 per cent over 1991-2001 and fell to 17.9 per cent over 2001-2011, the sharpest fall between two censuses since independence, and the decline has continued since. The engine behind it is fertility: the total fertility rate, the number of children an average woman would bear over her lifetime at current rates, has fallen decade after decade, and the fifth National Family Health Survey put it at 2.0 — below the replacement level of about 2.1

(b) Share of India's young population has started declining→TRUE — and it is the second face of the same fall. When fewer children are born each year, the youngest age groups stop expanding first and the effect works its way up the age pyramid. India's under-five population peaked around 2007 and the under-fifteen cohort around 2011, so the NUMBER of children, and not merely their share, has been falling; the 0-14 group was about a quarter of the population by 2021 and the median age had risen to roughly thirty

What neither statement says — and where the item is actually lost→Neither sentence says the population is falling. India's total has gone on rising throughout, because a young age structure carries MOMENTUM: even at replacement-level fertility, a large cohort of women already born keeps the number of births high for decades. A growth rate can decline while the total it applies to still rises, and holding those two ideas at once is the whole of this question

Both statements stand, so the row that accepts the pair is option (3). This is a conceptual item dressed as a factual one, which is the Commission's usual design on population. The same fall in the child share is what opens the demographic dividend — the window in which the working-age share of the population is at its highest, because the share of children has fallen and the share of the elderly has not yet risen. It is an opportunity rather than a guarantee, since it delivers growth only if the extra workers find productive employment, and India's youth unemployment and low female labour force participation are the standard objections to assuming it. Note that the option set gives nothing away: in a two-statement question all four rows must be printed as a matter of logic, so the existence of a both-correct row and a both-incorrect row tells a candidate nothing whatever. The census due in 2021 was postponed, which left Census 2011 as the most recent full count when this paper was set.

Study next

The demographic transition and its stages, with India's position in the sequence and the reason death rates fell long before birth ratesPopulation momentum and the demographic dividend — why a growth rate can fall while the total rises, and what has to happen for the dividend to be realisedCensus 2011 headline figures — total population, decadal growth, density, sex ratio, child sex ratio and literacy — with Maharashtra's figures alongside the national onesThe National Family Health Survey series and the Sample Registration System, what each measures and how often, since MPSC quotes bothThe National Population Policy 2000 and its socio-demographic goals, which is the policy half of this themeInter-state differences in fertility and age structure, and what they imply for migration, the labour force and the delimitation of constituencies

Common traps

Reading 'India is a young country' as a statement about direction rather than about level, and therefore rejecting a true statement that the young share is falling
Confusing the size of the population with its rate of growth, so that a rising total is taken to disprove a falling growth rate
Assuming the demographic dividend means a population getting younger, when it arrives precisely because the share of children is falling
Quoting a fertility figure without its source and year, since the Sample Registration System and the National Family Health Survey report different measures on different cycles
Treating Census 2011 figures as current, when the census due in 2021 was postponed and the intervening evidence comes from sample surveys rather than a full count

Population questions in MPSC papers take three shapes. The first is a figure item drawn from Census 2011 — total population, decadal growth rate, density, sex ratio, child sex ratio, literacy, or the corresponding Maharashtra number and the state's rank — and these must simply be held. The second is a conceptual item like this one, asking about the direction of a trend or the meaning of a term such as demographic dividend, population momentum, replacement-level fertility or dependency ratio; these are answerable from understanding rather than recall and are the cheapest marks in the topic. The third is a policy item on the National Population Policy 2000, its goals for 2010, or on state population policies, which are examined for their targets. The efficient preparation is one page of census figures, one page of concepts and one page of policy targets, refreshed with whichever survey round is current in the year of the paper.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Population momentum best explains which of the following ?
- (a)Why a country's death rate falls before its birth rate during the demographic transition
- (b)Why a population continues to grow for decades after fertility has fallen to the replacement level
- (c)Why the sex ratio at birth is skewed in some states
- (d)Why rural populations migrate towards metropolitan centres
Answer(b) Why a population continues to grow for decades after fertility has fallen to the replacement level — a young age structure means a very large number of women of childbearing age have already been born, so the annual number of births stays high even when each woman is having only about two children. This is why India's total population has kept rising while its growth rate has fallen and its total fertility rate has dropped below replacement. The other options describe the transition itself, sex selection and migration, none of which is what momentum refers to.
practice — not a real PYQ
India's decadal population growth rate as recorded by the Census fell between 1991-2001 and 2001-2011 from about which figures ?
- (a)From about 24 per cent to about 21 per cent
- (b)From about 21.5 per cent to about 17.9 per cent
- (c)From about 17.9 per cent to about 14.5 per cent
- (d)From about 28 per cent to about 24 per cent
Answer(b) From about 21.5 per cent to about 17.9 per cent — the fall between the 2001 and 2011 censuses was the sharpest recorded between two censuses since independence, and it reflected the continuing decline in fertility. The absolute increase in numbers nonetheless remained very large, because a growth rate applied to a base of more than a billion people adds enormously even as the rate itself falls, which is the distinction between a rate and a level that this topic turns on.