Population Composition and Change Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The key pairs Bogue with Principles of Demography, Kingsley Davis with Population of India and Pakistan, Richard Easterlin with Economic Backwardness and Economic Growth, and Nathan Keyfitz with Introduction to the Mathematics of Population, which is the code iv i ii iii. Donald Bogue wrote Principles of Demography in 1969, Davis wrote The Population of India and Pakistan in 1951, and Keyfitz wrote on the mathematics of population.

The third pairing is the one the key follows, though that book is usually credited to Harvey Leibenstein and not Easterlin, but it is the only one of the four titles left. The other codes mismatch at least two of the three secure pairings.

Answer: B

The average annual exponential growth rate of India's population during 2001-2011 was 1.64 per cent. The 2011 Census gives a decadal growth of 17.7 per cent, which corresponds to this exponential rate, found as the natural logarithm of the ratio of the two populations divided by ten.

The figures 0.64, 2.64 and 4.64 are not the census rate, and 2.64 would imply a much larger decadal growth than was recorded.

Answer: B

Arunachal Pradesh had the lowest density of population of the four, about 17 persons per square kilometre in 2011. Its hilly terrain and forests keep settlement thin.

Sikkim had about 86 and Mizoram about 52 persons per square kilometre, so both are denser. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands had about 46, which is also higher than Arunachal Pradesh.

Answer: D

Sex composition is not a social characteristic of a population in the usual classification: it is a biological characteristic, like age composition. Social characteristics cover religion, caste or ethnic group, language, and literacy and education.

Religious composition, caste and ethnic composition, and literacy and education are all social characteristics, so they are wrong for a question that asks which one is not.

Answer: A

The stages of the demographic transition are matched as Stage I with high birth rate and high death rate, Stage II with high birth rate and falling death rate, Stage III with declining birth rate and low death rate, and Stage IV with low birth rate and low death rate, which is the code iv iii ii i.

In the first stage both rates are high and the population grows slowly, in the second mortality falls first, in the third fertility starts to fall, and in the fourth both are low. The other codes mix up the order of these stages.

Answer: D

The official key gives literacy level as the variable that is not a demographic characteristic.

Age structure, sex structure and marital status are the basic demographic characteristics of a population: they describe its composition and enter directly into measures of fertility, mortality and nuptiality. Literacy is classed among the social and educational characteristics, which are described alongside the demographic ones but are not part of its core composition.

The distinction is a matter of convention, since literacy is also tabulated by population censuses, so I could not independently confirm the key, which stands as published.

Answer: C

The state that showed the fastest decline in growth rate in 2011 compared with 2001 is Maharashtra.

Maharashtra's decadal growth rate fell from about 22.6 per cent (1991 - 2001) to about 16.0 per cent (2001 - 2011), a fall of roughly 6.6 percentage points.

Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar also slowed down, but by less, about 3.5 to 4 points each. Bihar's growth rate stayed highest, near 25 per cent, so its decline was the smallest in relative terms.

Answer: A

The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes together made up about 24 per cent of India's population in the 2001 Census.

The Scheduled Castes were about 16.2 per cent and the Scheduled Tribes about 8.2 per cent, which adds up to 24.4 per cent.

26, 28 and 30 per cent are all too high. The next census (2011) put the combined share at about 25 per cent, which is still below 26.

Answer: C

The child population aged 0 - 6 in the 2011 Census was about 13 per cent of the total, which lies in the category 12.1 - 14.

That is roughly 159 million children out of 1,210 million persons.

The share was higher in 2001, at about 16 per cent, which would fall in the 14.1 - 16.0 band, so the 2011 figure shows a decline. The lower bands 8 - 10 and 10.1 - 12 are well below the actual figure.

Answer: C

The density of population in the 2011 Census was 382 persons per square kilometre, which lies in the category 350 - 399.

It had risen from 325 in 2001, as the population grew while the area stayed the same.

The lower bands (250 - 299 and 300 - 349) are the density of earlier censuses, 2001's figure of 325 falling in the second of them, and 400 - 450 would be higher than the figure recorded in 2011.