The infant mortality rate is the number of deaths of:

Children under one year of age per 1,000 live births in a year

Newborns within 28 days per 100,000 live births

Children under one year of age per 1,000 live births in a year

Women in childbirth per 100,000 live births

Children under five per 1,000 population

A net reproduction rate (NRR) of exactly 1 means that:

Each generation of mothers is exactly replaced by the next generation of daughters

Population doubles in one generation

The birth rate equals 1 per 1,000

Each woman bears exactly one child

Each generation of mothers is exactly replaced by the next generation of daughters

Zelinsky's hypothesis of the mobility transition (1971) proposes that:

Patterns of mobility change through phases that parallel the demographic transition

Women migrate more than men over long distances

Migrants respond to the probability of finding an urban job

Migration falls with the square of distance

Which of the following characterise a constrictive population pyramid? Select all that apply.

A base narrower than the middle of the pyramid

Rapidly rising numbers of births

A base narrower than the middle of the pyramid

A very high share of children under 15

Assertion (A): India expresses its sex ratio as the number of females per 1,000 males. Reason (R): India's censuses have recorded more males than females throughout the twentieth century. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Population Geography II: Fertility and Mortality Analysis, Migration and its Models, Population Composition, and Population Policies

The second half of the population block covers the three components of change and the structure they leave behind. The document names fertility and mortality analysis (indices, determinants and world patterns); migration (types, causes, consequences and models); population composition and characteristics (age, sex, rural–urban, occupational structure and educational levels); and population policies in developed and developing countries. The indices are computed, not just named, because NET asks for the arithmetic; the migration models — Ravenstein, Lee, Stouffer, Zelinsky and Todaro — are set out side by side because their differences are what questions test.

1. Fertility and mortality analysis: indices, determinants and world patterns

Index	Formula	Note
Crude birth rate (CBR)	Live births in a year ÷ mid-year population × 1,000	Crude because the whole population, including men and children, is the denominator
General fertility rate (GFR)	Live births ÷ women aged 15–49 × 1,000	Restricts the denominator to women of reproductive age
Age-specific fertility rate (ASFR)	Births to women of an age group ÷ women in that group × 1,000	Usually in seven five-year groups from 15–19 to 45–49
Total fertility rate (TFR)	5 × sum of the ASFRs ÷ 1,000	Children a woman would bear at current rates; about 2.1 is replacement
Gross and net reproduction rates (GRR, NRR)	TFR counting daughters only; NRR also allows for mothers' mortality	NRR = 1 means each generation of women exactly replaces itself
Child–woman ratio	Children aged 0–4 ÷ women aged 15–49 × 1,000	Needs only census age data — useful where registration is poor
Crude death rate and infant mortality rate (IMR)	Deaths ÷ mid-year population × 1,000; deaths under age one ÷ live births × 1,000	IMR is the most sensitive single indicator of health conditions; maternal mortality is per 100,000 live births

A worked example shows why the TFR is the preferred measure. If the seven ASFRs of a population are 20, 110, 130, 80, 40, 15 and 5 births per 1,000 women, their sum is 400, and TFR = 5 × 400 ÷ 1,000 = 2.0 — just below replacement. The CDR, in contrast, can mislead: a young population with poor health can have a lower crude death rate than a rich, ageing one, which is why age-standardised death rates and life expectancy are used to compare places. The determinants of fertility are age at marriage, women's education and employment, access to contraception, child mortality (families replace lost children), son preference, urbanisation and religion; mortality depends on nutrition, safe water, sanitation, immunisation and health care. The world pattern runs from TFRs above six in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, such as Niger, to below 1 in South Korea; India's TFR reached 2.0 in NFHS-5 (2019–21), with Bihar and Uttar Pradesh still above replacement and most southern states well below it.

2. Migration: types, causes, consequences and models

Migration is classified by distance and boundary (internal or international), by direction (rural–rural, rural–urban, urban–urban, urban–rural), by duration (permanent, temporary, seasonal, circulatory or commuting) and by cause (voluntary or forced — refugees who cross a border and internally displaced persons who do not). The Indian census records migrants by place of birth and by place of last residence; by either measure rural-to-rural streams are the largest, and marriage is the leading reason for women's migration while employment leads for men. The consequences are demographic (skewed sex and age structures — male-deficient origins and male-surplus destinations), economic (remittances, labour supply, brain drain), social (cultural diffusion, slum growth, social tension) and environmental (pressure on urban land and services).

Model	Author and year	Central idea
Laws of migration	E.G. Ravenstein, 1885 and 1889	Most migrants move short distances; migration proceeds by steps; long-distance migrants head for great centres of commerce and industry; every current produces a counter-current; town-dwellers migrate less than rural people; women migrate more than men over short distances; economic motives predominate
Intervening opportunities	S.A. Stouffer, 1940	The number of migrants to a place depends not on distance itself but on the opportunities there relative to the opportunities passed on the way
Gravity model of migration	After G.K. Zipf, 1946	Migration between two places varies directly with the product of their populations and inversely with the distance between them
Push–pull with intervening obstacles	Everett S. Lee, 1966	Factors at the origin, factors at the destination, intervening obstacles and personal factors; migration is selective
Mobility transition	Wilbur Zelinsky, 1971	Five phases of mobility that parallel the demographic transition, from limited circulation in pre-modern societies to mass rural–urban migration and then urban–urban and circulatory movement
Expected-income model	Michael Todaro, 1969; Harris and Todaro, 1970	Rural people migrate on the urban wage multiplied by the probability of getting a job, so migration continues despite urban unemployment

⚠️ Lee added obstacles and personal factors, not the push–pull idea itself

Push and pull go back to Ravenstein's observations. Lee's contribution (1966) is the four-part framework — origin, destination, intervening obstacles, personal factors — and the propositions that migration is selective and that each stream has a counter-stream. A question crediting Lee with "intervening opportunities" is confusing him with Stouffer.

3. Population composition and characteristics

The age–sex pyramid summarises past fertility, mortality and migration. An expansive (progressive) pyramid has a broad base and tapering sides — high fertility and a young population, as in Niger. A constrictive pyramid is narrower at the base than in the middle — fertility has fallen recently, the median age is high, as in Japan or Italy. A stationary pyramid has nearly vertical sides. The dependency ratio relates dependants to people of working age: (population aged 0–14 + population aged 65 and over) ÷ population aged 15–64 × 100. With 30 million children, 10 million elderly and 80 million of working age, it is 40 ÷ 80 × 100 = 50. A falling ratio as fertility declines opens a demographic dividend — a window in which the working-age share is at its peak.

Sex ratio is expressed in India as females per 1,000 males — 943 in the 2011 census — whereas most countries give males per 100 females. India's ratio has been masculine throughout the census record, and the child sex ratio (0–6) fell to 918 in 2011, the lowest since independence, a geography of son preference concentrated in the north-west (Haryana, Punjab) and reflected in sex-selective abortion. Rural–urban composition: 31.2 per cent of Indians were urban in 2011. Occupational structure is analysed through the primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary shares of workers — in India a large primary share survives even as the tertiary share of output dominates. Educational level is measured by literacy (the census counts people aged seven and above who can read and write with understanding): 74.0 per cent in 2011, 82.1 per cent for men and 65.5 per cent for women, ranging from about 94 per cent in Kerala to about 62 per cent in Bihar.

4. Population policies in developed and developing countries

Developed countries, facing below-replacement fertility and ageing, mostly pursue pronatalist policies: family allowances (France has had them since before the Second World War and remains among Europe's higher-fertility countries), paid parental leave and subsidised childcare (Sweden), cash incentives (Russia's "maternity capital" from 2007), and in some cases selective immigration (Canada's points system, introduced in 1967). Singapore shows a reversal within one generation — from the anti-natalist "Stop at Two" campaign of the 1970s to "Have three or more if you can afford it" in 1987. Developing countries have mostly pursued anti-natalist policies, at their most coercive in China's one-child policy (from about 1980; replaced by a two-child policy in 2016 and a three-child policy in 2021).

India was the first country to adopt a national family planning programme, in 1952. The coercive sterilisation drive of the Emergency (1976) discredited the programme, which was renamed Family Welfare in 1977. The International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994) shifted the world from demographic targets to reproductive health and rights and women's empowerment, and India abolished method-specific targets in 1996 (the target-free approach). The National Population Policy, 2000 set an immediate objective of meeting the unmet need for contraception and for health infrastructure, a medium-term objective of bringing the TFR to replacement level by 2010, and a long-term objective of stabilising the population by 2045. Since 2016 Mission Parivar Vikas has concentrated effort on high-fertility districts in seven states.

ℹ️ Momentum: why India keeps growing after reaching replacement

A TFR of 2.0 does not stop growth at once. The large cohorts born when fertility was high are now in their reproductive years, so the absolute number of births stays high for decades — population momentum. That is why projections put India's peak population in the 2060s even though its TFR fell to replacement around 2020.

Key takeaways

TFR = 5 × ΣASFR ÷ 1,000, replacement about 2.1; NRR = 1 is exact replacement; IMR counts deaths under one per 1,000 live births; India's TFR reached 2.0 in NFHS-5.
Ravenstein (1885, 1889): short distances, steps, counter-currents; Stouffer (1940): intervening opportunities; Lee (1966): origin, destination, intervening obstacles, personal factors; Zelinsky (1971): mobility transition; Todaro: expected income.
In India rural–rural streams are largest and marriage is the chief reason for women's migration; migration skews the sex and age structure of both origin and destination.
Expansive, constrictive and stationary pyramids; dependency ratio = (0–14 + 65+) ÷ (15–64) × 100; India 2011: sex ratio 943, child sex ratio 918, urban 31.2 per cent, literacy 74.0 per cent.
Developed countries are mostly pronatalist (France, Sweden, Russia; Singapore reversed in 1987); China ran a one-child policy; India began family planning in 1952 and its NPP 2000 aimed at replacement TFR by 2010 and stabilisation by 2045.

Practice questions (10)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

The infant mortality rate is the number of deaths of:
1. Newborns within 28 days per 100,000 live births
2. Children under one year of age per 1,000 live births in a year
3. Women in childbirth per 100,000 live births
4. Children under five per 1,000 population
Show answer
Answer: B — Children under one year of age per 1,000 live births in a year
IMR is deaths under age one per 1,000 live births. Deaths within 28 days give the neonatal mortality rate (per 1,000 live births), and maternal deaths are expressed per 100,000 live births as the maternal mortality ratio.
The age-specific fertility rates of a population for the seven five-year age groups from 15–19 to 45–49 add up to 400 births per 1,000 women. What is its total fertility rate? Type a number.
Numerical answer — type the value.
Show answer
Answer: 2
TFR = 5 × ΣASFR ÷ 1,000 = 5 × 400 ÷ 1,000 = 2. The factor 5 is needed because each ASFR applies to five years of a woman's life; the result, 2 children per woman, is just below the replacement level of about 2.1.
A net reproduction rate (NRR) of exactly 1 means that:
1. Population doubles in one generation
2. The birth rate equals 1 per 1,000
3. Each woman bears exactly one child
4. Each generation of mothers is exactly replaced by the next generation of daughters
Show answer
Answer: D — Each generation of mothers is exactly replaced by the next generation of daughters
The NRR counts the daughters a woman would bear at current fertility and mortality rates. At 1, each woman is replaced by one daughter who survives to reproductive age — replacement, which corresponds to a TFR of about 2.1 in low-mortality populations.
"Each main current of migration produces a compensating counter-current" is one of the laws of migration formulated by:
1. Michael Todaro
2. Wilbur Zelinsky
3. E.G. Ravenstein
4. S.A. Stouffer
Show answer
Answer: C — E.G. Ravenstein
Ravenstein's laws, drawn from British census birthplace data in 1885 and 1889, include short-distance movement, step migration and counter-currents. Lee later restated the counter-stream idea within his own framework.
Everett Lee's theory of migration (1966) introduced a framework of factors at the origin, factors at the destination, personal factors and:
1. Intervening opportunities
2. Intervening obstacles
3. Expected urban income
4. The mobility transition
Show answer
Answer: B — Intervening obstacles
Lee's fourth element is intervening obstacles — distance, cost, laws, family ties. Intervening opportunities is Stouffer's concept, expected income Todaro's, and the mobility transition Zelinsky's.
Zelinsky's hypothesis of the mobility transition (1971) proposes that:
1. Patterns of mobility change through phases that parallel the demographic transition
2. Women migrate more than men over long distances
3. Migrants respond to the probability of finding an urban job
4. Migration falls with the square of distance
Show answer
Answer: A — Patterns of mobility change through phases that parallel the demographic transition
Zelinsky linked mobility to modernisation: as societies pass through the demographic transition, movement shifts from limited circulation to mass rural–urban migration and later to urban–urban and circulatory flows. The job-probability idea is Todaro's.
Which of the following characterise a constrictive population pyramid? Select all that apply.
1. Rapidly rising numbers of births
2. A base narrower than the middle of the pyramid
3. A high median age
4. A very high share of children under 15
Show answer
Answer: B — A base narrower than the middle of the pyramid; C — A high median age
A constrictive pyramid follows a recent fall in fertility: fewer children than young adults, so the base is pinched and the median age is high, as in Japan. A large child share and rising births describe an expansive pyramid.
A region has 30 million people aged 0–14, 10 million aged 65 and over and 80 million aged 15–64. What is its dependency ratio? Type a number.
Numerical answer — type the value.
Show answer
Answer: 50
Dependency ratio = (30 + 10) ÷ 80 × 100 = 40 ÷ 80 × 100 = 50, meaning 50 dependants for every 100 people of working age. The young dependency ratio alone is 37.5 and the old-age ratio 12.5.
Assertion (A): India expresses its sex ratio as the number of females per 1,000 males. Reason (R): India's censuses have recorded more males than females throughout the twentieth century. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: B — Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
Both are true. But the convention of expressing sex ratio as females per 1,000 males is a choice of definition, not a consequence of the masculine ratio — R does not explain A. Most countries use males per 100 females instead.
India's National Population Policy, 2000 set as its long-term objective:
1. A one-child norm by 2020
2. A stable population by 2045
3. Zero population growth by 2000
4. A TFR of 1.5 by 2030
Show answer
Answer: B — A stable population by 2045
NPP 2000 had three tiers: meeting unmet needs for contraception and health infrastructure (immediate), a replacement-level TFR by 2010 (medium-term) and population stabilisation by 2045 (long-term), in a target-free, rights-based framework after Cairo 1994.