India’s skewed sex ratio to worsen further, says a government report

The sex ration will dip to 898 girls for 1,000 boys in 2031, says a ministry of statistics and programme implementation report

Updated on: Apr 18, 2017, 08:50:04 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Chetan Chauhan

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As India’s proportion of youth in the total population falls, the sex ratio will dip to 898 girls for 1,000 boys in 2031 from 939 in 2011, a new government study has projected.

A government report says sex ratio among youth is consistently decreasing since 1991. (PTI Photo)

Quoting data from the Census and World Bank, a ministry of statistics and programme implementation report said the negative aspect of youth in India was that the sex ratio among them has been consistently decreasing since 1991.

“The reduction in sex ratio of youth is found to be much more than that of the overall population. It has come down to 939 in 2011 from 961 in 1971 and is projected to decline further to 904 in 2021 and to 898 by 2031,” the report titled youth in India said.

The projection is based on very low sex ratio at birth in India. The number of girls born for 1,000 boys -- the definition of sex ratio --- was 914 in 2011 and is projected to fall further in coming decades.

“The newborns would fall in the youth category in the next 20 years and its implications will be visible in overall youth demography of the country,” said Ranjani Kumar, director of a Delhi-based advocacy group, the Centre for Social Research.

While the number of young people in population in absolute numbers will rise, the report projected that its proportion to population will fall for the first time from 34.8% in 2011 to 31.8% in 2031.

“The share of youth in total population has increased from 30.6% in the year 1971 to 34.8% in the year 2011,” the report said.

But that may not change India’s being the youngest country in the world as similar trends would be seen in China and Indonesia, the two other countries with a large young population.

“By 2010, India accounted for 17.8% of the world population, recording an increase of 2.7% in its share since 1970. This growth is projected to continue and by 2030, young Indians would account for 17.97% of global population,” the report said.

While the population of youth is projected to increase by about 68 million in 2031, the worrisome trend is of rising suicide among young.

The report said suicide among youth accounted for 33% of such deaths in India in 2015, a three percentage point increase since 2010. The biggest contributor for taking one’s life was relationship discord.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More