Dynamics of Population In Relation to Gross Domestic Product With Reference to North East Region (Ner)

Generally population growth enlarges the available work force and thus increases economic growth. And at the same time, a large population growth also provides a greater domestic market for the disposal of finished product thereby increases the region’s gross domestic product. The increase of population also encourages competition, which automatically induces innovations, technological advancement. Nevertheless, a large population growth is not only associated with food problem but also imposes constraints on the development of savings, foreign exchange and management of human resource. The dynamics of population in a region or a country is now more concerned with the changing age structure of population rather than the overall growth rate of population. Given the condition of skills, capacity, employability and employment opportunities, there will be a favorable impact on the economic conditions if the relative size of working population is higher than the non-working population, i.e. children and older peoples. This increase of working group of population with respect to the positive impact on the economy can be termed as ‘Demographic Dividend’. For achieving certain levels of economic development, greater amounts of funds need to be injected to different channels of expenditures or investment purposes. For this, there was a need of generation or expansion of surplus incomes over consumption expenditure; which is mainstay of investment. In order to create more create more funds for this, there must be a corresponding increase of working population quantitatively as well as qualitatively. In other words, higher proportion of workers to the non-workers, the larger would be the surplus funds generated.

The study is primarily based on secondary data taken from different Census of India publications, Basic Statistics of North East Region and other relevant materials. The data so obtained have been analysed through simple but meaningful statistical techniques including ratios/percentage, average exponential growth rates.

Here an effort is made to highlight the comparision between physical settings with respect to the uneven distribution of population in the region. While discussing the distribution of population in different states of the region it is found that there is an extremely uneven distribution of population within the region. Table 1 shows the ever increasing of population in the North Eastern States in 1951 to 2011 census.

Source : Census 2011, RGI

Notes : @ The 1981 census could not be held in Assam. The population figure for 1981 for Assam has been worked out by interpolation. ** The 1991 Census could not be held in Jammu & Kashmir. The population figure for 1991 for Jammu & Kashmir has been worked out by interpolation. Among the states of NER, Arunachal Pradesh (83743 sq kms-32% of the region’s area) covers the largest geographical area in terms of square kilometres and endowed with 13.83 lakhs of population. On the other hand, the state of Assam is smaller than Arunachal Pradesh in terms of land area but Assam contains more than 3.12 crores of population in 2011 census. The land man ratio of Tripura is very large as compared to other states except Assam, it is the second smallest state in the region but it is endowed with a large population more than 36 lakhs. The other hill state like Arunachal Pradesh is having less number of population compared to the state of Assam and Tripura. The other states like Sikkim and Mizoram have land areas of 7096 sq. kms, 22081 sq. kms and contains only 6.1 lakhs and 10.9 lakhs of population (2011 census).

In Table 2 Decadal variation in population and average exponential growth rate of the states in between 1971 to 2011 have been shown. The average exponential growth rates have fallen progressively during those decades.

Table 2 shows the gain of population NER during the decades. The North Easter Region of India, which constitutes country’s 7.76 percent area and 3.77 percent population (2011 census). Among the NE states, Nagaland has accounted the most increasing during the said decades and recorded average decadal growth rate during 1971 to 2001 was stood at 56.85 percent, but she has recorded a negative decadal growth rate of - 0.6 during the period of 2001-2011. During the last decade i.e 2001 to 2011, the average decadal growth rate of population of the region was hovering at 20.02 percent, which is a very commendable success for bringing down the numbers of population as compared to the previous decades like 1971-81, 1981-1991 and 1991-2001. The average annual growth rate of the decade has been also dwindling slowly but steadily, in 1971-81 the average was stood at 3.58 percent, except Sikkim, and this rate was again slowly diminishing at a very impressive rate – 1981 to 1991, it was 3.57 percent (except Sikkim); 1991 to 2001 it was 2.91 percent; 2001 to 2011 it was 1.81 percent. During the period of 2001 – 2011, Nagaland has recorded a negative growth rate i.e. -0.05 growth of population, which is an amazing performance by the state for stabilizing the challenge of ever increasing population.

Sometimes the constant and steady increase of population was essential in order to neutralise the increasing demand of man power by the different sectors of the economy. One of the main factors attributed to growth of population is the decline in infant mortality rate and increase average life expectancy. The state wise infant mortality rates are given in Table 3 and the rates have fallen consistently.

The state-wise infant mortality rates are given in Table 3 and it shows that these rates have fallen consistently. Infant mortality is the death of a child less than one year of age. It is measured as infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the number of deaths of children under one year of age per 1000 live births. The leading causes of infant mortality are birth asphyxia, pneumonia, pre-term birth complications, neonatal infection, diarrhea, malaria, measles and malnutrition. Many factors contribute to infant mortality such as the mother's level of education, environmental conditions, and political and medical infrastructure. Improving sanitation, access to clean drinking water, immunization against infectious diseases, and other public health measures could help reduce high rates of infant mortality. This rate is often used as an indicator of the level of health in a country. The continuous decline of average infant mortality rates at every year is an important indicator of success of the region. In the NER, the average infant mortality rate is 42.14 per thousand people while the all India’s average is stood at 50 in 2009; this rate goes on decreasing i.e. 37.85 per thousand (2010); 37.14 per thousand (2011) and 36 per thousand in 2012, which were relatively low as compared to the all India level respectively.

While analyzing the demographic composition of the NER, another interesting feature was sprung up i.e. the continuous and consistent increase of Gross Domestic Product with the increase of population. Another demographic feature which must be included in the above relation was the continuous falling of infant mortality rates (Table : 3). The fall in infant mortality rate is no doubt due to the advancement and easy availability medical and health care facilities. Meanwhile, the continuous increasing of Gross Domestic Product of the different states within the region is no doubt the economic success of different states of NER. Gross Domestic Product simply represents the amount of money available at the hands of economy for different purposes. Continuous increase of GDP is an essential condition for driving the economy to the path of development. In some cases, the increase of GDP was neutralizing by the ever increasing population and no surpluses could be happened. The unique demographic composition of the NER was that, the increasing the numbers of population is embedded by the continuous and consistent increase of Gross Domestic Product. In table 1, the total numbers of population at 2001 census was stood at 38,986000 persons, from this data it is obvious that the numbers of population in 2004 will cross the 4 crores, but from the table 4, in 2004 the domestic product of the region was estimated at Rs. 8,774,139 lakhs. In 2011 census, the region accommodated 45482000 numbers of populations while the region’s gross domestic product reaches to the amount of Rs. 13,916,471 lakhs. By comparing the table 4 and table 1, one interesting thing was coming out, i.e. change of population have a positive impact to the region’s gross domestic product. This correlation between The main reason for the increase of Region’s Gross Domestic Product is presumed to be the increase of working population and the ever declining of infant mortality rates. The continuous decline of infant mortality rate and easier and better health care amenities produce youths, who were the main sources of creation of wealth; this demographic feature substancially reduce dependent population to a certain extent.

The population dynamics and its offshoot problems are closely connected with social and economic development and no development programme could succeed which ignores population factors. Various quantitative factors concerning population such as its distribution, density pattern, migration, labour force structure are very important for planning either at macro or regional levels. Besides, other qualitative factors such as literacy, health, productivity, social justice etc are very important for studying qualitative population dynamics and for making planning of social policies.

Basic Satistics of NER, (2015) published by North Eastern Council. Mizoram Economic Survey 2014-15, by Planning Programme & Implementation Department, Govt. of Mizoram. Population and Development in North East India. Edited by Bimal J. Deb. Malthus, T. (1798). An Essay of the Principle of Population and a Summery View of the Principles of Population. London: Pickering. Meier, G. M. (1995). Leading Issues in Economic Development. 6th d. New York: Oxford University Press.