Which of the following statement accurately reflects the relationship between demographic transition and replacement level?

Correct — C. Demographic transition is the move from high births and high deaths to low births and low deaths, with rapid growth in between.

Growth can settle only when fertility falls to about the replacement level, the rate at which each generation just replaces the one before. So the shift from high growth to low growth goes with reaching replacement level: option (c).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  In the third stage, fertility begins to approach replacement level — True in some versions, not in NCERT's. NCERT's three-stage model starts the fall in fertility in the second stage, while four- and five-stage versions put it in the third. Statement (c) does not depend on how the stages are numbered.
• (b)
  Population stabilization occurs when fertility rate drops below replacement level — Stabilisation comes when fertility settles at replacement level. Held below it, each generation is smaller than the one before, which leads toward decline, not stability.
• (d)
  Replacement level is unrelated to demographic transition — Replacement level is the benchmark for the end of the transition, the point where low births balance low deaths. The two ideas are directly linked.

Demographic transition theory says a population moves from high births and high deaths to low births and low deaths as society turns from rural, agrarian and illiterate to urban, industrial and literate.

Deaths fall first, through better sanitation and health, while births stay high for a while, so growth is fast. Replacement level is the benchmark for the fall in births: fertility just high enough for each generation to replace the one before.

Key facts

• NCERT's three-stage model: the first stage has high fertility and high mortality, and growth is slow.
• Second stage: mortality falls while fertility stays high at first and then declines, so the net addition to population is high.
• Last stage: fertility and mortality are both low, and the population is stable or grows slowly.
• Replacement-level fertility is about 2.1 births per woman where child mortality is low, and higher where child mortality is high.

Common traps

• Equating replacement level with instant stability. A young population keeps growing for a time after reaching it, through population momentum.
• Reading 'below replacement' in option (b) as the condition for stability. Below it, each generation is smaller than the last.

No directly related past PYQ was found.