Population Composition and Change Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Arunachal Pradesh had the highest decadal growth rate of the four States in 2001-2011.

The 2011 Census gives Arunachal Pradesh a growth of about 25.9 per cent. Bihar follows with about 25.1 per cent, Rajasthan with about 21.4 per cent and Madhya Pradesh with about 20.3 per cent.

Bihar is the usual wrong guess, since it is the large State with the highest fertility, but its growth rate is a little below that of Arunachal Pradesh, whose growth is helped by migration into the State as well as by natural increase. Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh grew more slowly than both.

Answer: B

The doubling time of a population is the natural logarithm of 2 divided by the growth rate r, which is the second option.

If a population grows at a constant rate r, then \[ P_t = P_0 e^{rt} \]

Setting the population equal to double the starting value gives \[ 2 = e^{rt} \]

Taking natural logarithms of both sides gives \[ t = \frac{\log_e 2}{r} \]

The first option uses the logarithm without the base e, which would give a different number, and the third and fourth options have 2r in the denominator, which would make the doubling time half as long, so they are wrong. The 2 printed above the log in the booklet stands for the number 2 whose logarithm is taken.

Answer: B

Population momentum is the tendency of a population to continue to grow after replacement level fertility has been reached.

A population that has been growing fast has a young age structure, with many young people still to enter the childbearing ages. Even if each couple has only enough children to replace themselves, the number of births stays above the number of deaths for decades, until the age structure has settled.

The first option is the opposite, since it describes continued decline. The third option describes nothing in demography, and the fourth is wrong because stabilisation is reached only after momentum has worked itself out, so the two are not the same.

Answer: B

Mizoram has the highest literacy among the four States in the 2011 Census.

Mizoram's literacy rate was about 91.6 per cent, the second highest in India after Kerala. Tripura followed with about 87.2 per cent, Manipur with about 79.9 per cent and Meghalaya with about 74.4 per cent.

Tripura is the closest wrong choice, but it is still more than four points below Mizoram. Manipur and Meghalaya are well below Mizoram in literacy, so neither of them can be right.

Answer: D

The two conflict theorists were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Marx and Engels rejected the theory of Malthus. They argued that the poverty and hunger of the working class are caused by the capitalist system and its unequal distribution, and not by population outgrowing food, and that farming and production could be increased to feed a larger population.

Sutherland and Cressey are criminologists. Merton is a functionalist, and Auguste Comte and Henri Saint-Simon were early sociologists associated with positivism and not with conflict theory against Malthus.

Answer: C

The official key names Talcott Parsons as the one known for theorising the social composition of population.

Talcott Parsons built a general theory of social systems, with roles, social structure and the composition of groups, and this is the theoretical work the question has in mind.

Goldsteen and Sly, Shryock and Siegel, and D.J. Bogue are known for textbooks and technical work in demography, such as the methods and materials of demography and the principles of demography, and not for the theorising of social composition. So the key sets Parsons apart.

Answer: A

The fourth stage of the demographic transition occurs in the advanced industrialisation and urbanisation stage.

In the demographic transition, the fourth stage is the one of low birth and low death rates, with a slow or stationary growth. It belongs to a mature industrial society, with high urbanisation, high education and wide use of family planning.

The pre-industrial stage matches the first stage, with high birth and death rates, and the early industrial stage matches the second, with falling death rates and rapid growth. The post-industrial stage is beyond the four stages of the classic model, so it is not the fourth stage either.

Answer: D

Among the options, Dadra and Nagar Haveli showed the highest decadal growth rate in 2001-2011, at about 55.9 per cent. This was the highest growth of any State or Union Territory in the 2011 Census, mainly because of migration for industrial work.

Arunachal Pradesh grew by about 26 per cent, Bihar by about 25 per cent and Uttar Pradesh by about 20 per cent, so each is well below Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

Answer: B

The balancing equation expresses the change in population over time in a simple form: the population at the end of a period equals the population at the start plus births minus deaths plus in-migrants minus out-migrants. It is the basic accounting identity of demography, written as P2 = P1 + B - D + I - O.

A quadratic equation, an integral equation and a functional equation are mathematical terms for kinds of equations and are not the name of the demographic identity relating the change in a population to its components.

Answer: B

India's population showed a negative growth rate in 1911-21, when it fell by about 0.3 per cent, mainly because of the influenza epidemic of 1918-19 and the famines and other disasters of the period. 1921 is therefore called the year of the great divide.

The other periods show positive growth: 1901-11 and 1921-31 had increases of about 5.8 and 11 per cent, and 1991-2001 had a rise of about 21 per cent.