Population Composition 

Population composition is a distinct field of study within population geography with a vast coverage of analysis of age and sex, place of residence, ethnic characteristics, tribes, language, religion, marital status, literacy and education, occupational characteristics, etc. In this section, the composition of Indian population with respect to their rural-urban characteristics, language, religion and pattern of occupation will be discussed. 

Rural – Urban Composition

Composition of population by their respective places of residence is an important indicator of social and economic characteristics. This becomes even more significant for a country where about 68.8 per cent of its total population lives in village (2011). India has 640,867 villages according to the Census 2011 out of which 597,608 (93.2 per cent) are inhabited villages? However, the distribution of rural population is not uniform throughout the country. You might have noted that the states like Bihar and Sikkim have very high percentage of rural population. The states of Goa and Maharashtra have only little over half of their total population residing in villages.
The Union Territories, on the other hand, have smaller proportion of rural population, except Dadra and Nagar Haveli (53.38 per cent). The size of villages also varies considerably. It is less than 200 persons in the hill states of north-eastern India, Western Rajasthan and Rann of Kuchchh and as high as 17 thousand persons in the states of Kerala and in parts of Maharashtra. A thorough examination of the pattern of distribution of rural population of India reveals that both at intra-State and interState levels, the relative degree of urbanisation and extent of rural-urban migration regulate
the concentration of rural population.
You have noted that contrary to rural population, the proportion of urban population (31.16 per cent) in India is quite low but it is showing a much faster rate of growth over the decades. The growth rate of urban population has accelerated due to enhanced economic development and improvement in health and hygienic conditions. The distribution of urban population too, as in the case of total population, has a wide variation throughout the country . 
It is, however, noticed that in almost all the states and Union Territories, there has been a considerable increase of urban population.
This indicates both development of urban areas in terms of socio-economic conditions and an increased rate of rural-urban migration. The rural-urban migration is conspicuous in the case of urban areas along the main road links and railroads in the North Indian Plains, the industrial areas around Kolkata, Mumbai, Bengaluru – Mysuru, Madurai – Coimbatore, Ahmedabad – Surat, Delhi – Kanpur and Ludhiana – Jalandhar. In the agriculturally stagnant parts of the middle and lower Ganga Plains, Telengana, non-irrigated Western Rajasthan, remote hilly, tribal areas of northeast, along the flood prone areas of Peninsular India and along eastern part of Madhya Pradesh, the degree of urbanisation has remained low. 

Linguistic Composition 

India is a land of linguistic diversity. According to Grierson (Linguistic Survey of India, 1903 – 1928) there were 179 languages and as many as 544 dialects in the country. In the context of modern India, there are about 22 scheduled languages and a number of non-scheduled languages. See how many languages appear on a ten Rs note. Among the scheduled languages, the speakers of Hindi have the highest percentage. The smallest language groups are Kashmiri and Sanskrit speakers. However, it is noticed that the linguistic regions in the country do not maintain a sharp and distinct boundary, rather they gradually merge and overlap in their respective border zones. 

Linguistic Classification 

The speakers of major Indian languages belong to four language families, which have their sub-families and branches or groups. 

Religious Composition 

Religion is one of the most dominant forces affecting the cultural and political life of the most of Indians. Since religion virtually permeates into almost all the aspects of people’s family and community lives, it is important to study the religious composition in detail. 

The spatial distribution of religious communities in the country that there are certain states and districts having large numerical strength of one religion, while the same may be very negligibly represented in other states. Hindus are distributed as a major group in many states (ranging from 70 - 90 per cent and above) except the districts of states along Indo- Bangladesh border, Indo-Pak border, Jammu & Kashmir, Hill States of North-East and in scattered areas of Deccan Plateau and Ganga Plain. 
Muslims, the largest religious minority, are concentrated in Jammu & Kashmir, certain districts of West Bengal and Kerala, many districts of Uttar Pradesh , in and around Delhi and in Lakshadweep. They form majority in Kashmir valley and Lakshadweep. 

The Christian population is distributed mostly in rural areas of the country. The main concentration is observed along the Western coast around Goa, Kerala and also in the hill states of Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Chotanagpur area and Hills of Manipur.
Sikhs are mostly concentrated in relatively small area of the country, particularly in the states of Punjab, Haryana and Delhi. 
Jains and Buddhists, the smallest religious groups in India have their concentration only in selected areas of the country. Jains have major concentration in the urban areas of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra, while the Buddhists are concentrated mostly in Maharashtra. The other areas of Buddhist majority are Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh in Jammu & Kashmir, Tripura, and Lahul and Spiti in Himachal Pradesh.
The other religions of India include Zoroastrians, tribal and other indigenous faiths and beliefs. These groups are concentrated in small pockets scattered throughout the country. Composition of Working Population The population of India according to their economic status is divided into three groups, namely; main workers, marginal workers and non-workers. It is observed that in India, the proportion of workers (both main and marginal) is only 39.8 per cent (2011) leaving a vast majority of about 60 per cent as non-workers. This indicates an economic status in which there is a larger proportion of dependent population, further indicating possible existence of large number of unemployed or under employed people.

What is work participation rate?

• The proportion of working population, of the states and Union Territories show a moderate variation from about 39.6 per cent in Goa to about 49.9 per cent in Daman and Diu.
• The states with larger percentages of workers are Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Meghalaya.
• Among the Union Territories, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu have higher participation rate. It is understood that, in the context of a country like India, the work participation rate tends to be higher in the areas of lower levels of economic development since number of manual workers are needed to perform the subsistence or near subsistence economic activities.
• The occupational composition (see box) of India’s population (which actually means engagement of an individual in farming, manufacturing trade, services or any kind of professional activities) shows a large proportion of primary sector workers compared to secondary and tertiary sectors. About 54.6 per cent of total working population are cultivators and agricultural labourers, whereas only 3.8% of workers are engaged in household industries and 41.6 % are other workers including non- household industries, trade, commerce, construction and repair and other services. As far as the occupation of country’s male and female population is concerned, male workers out-number female workers in all the three sectors . 
• The number of female workers is relatively high in primary sector, though in recent years there has been some improvement in work participation of women in secondary and tertiary sectors.
• It is important to note that the proportion of workers in agricultural sector in India has shown a decline over the last few decades (58.2% in 2001 to 54.6% in 2011). Consequently, the participation rate in secondary and tertiary sector has registered an increase. This indicates a shift of dependence of workers from farm- based occupations to non-farm based ones, indicating a sectoral shift in the economy of the country.
• The spatial variation of work participation rate in different sectors in the country  is very wide. For instance, the states like Himachal Pradesh and Nagaland have very large shares of cultivators. On the other hand states like Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh have higher proportion of agricultural labourers. The highly urbanised are  as like Delhi, Chandigarh and Puducherry have a very large proportion of workers being engaged in other services. This indicates not only availability of limited farming land, but also large scale urbanisation and industrialisation requiring more workers in non-farm sector. 

Population Explosion – An Obstacle to India’s Economic Development 

India today is grossly overpopulated. The Census of Population 2011 shows that we are now having over one billion people in India. This means that the country has to support over 16 percent of world population on just about 2.4 percent of total world area. And as country is short of capital and technology to fully exploit its resources, it means that most of the Indians live in poverty, face unemployment and suffer from ill health. No wonder that in spite of half a century of development, over a fourth of India’s population lives below poverty line. In the underdeveloped countries of today, increasing population is more of a hindrance to the development of the economy. It is now universally agreed that an effective control of population growth is necessary if our development efforts is to yield any result. 

Major Problems Created by Growth of Population in Development of an Economy in India 

Following problems arise due to population explosion.

• Increasing population has eaten up much of the additional income that has been generated in the economy during the period of the Five-Year Plans. As against a eighteen fold increase in national income, the per capita income has gone up barely fivefold over this period of five decades.
• Population explosion in India has resulted in a serious food shortage in the country. In spite of the fact that more than seventy percent of the working people are engaged in agriculture, Indian people still do not get even the minimum necessary amount of food.
• Increasing population with the growing number of children adds more to the unproductive population of the country.
• In India, due to population growth, by the end of 2009-10 the number of unemployed persons was estimated to be over 66 million. The present estimate of unemployment in
• India by many economists is nearly 80 to 90 million persons.
• Population growth hampers the growth of capital formation and reduces volume of savings
• Increase in population reduces per capita income and lowers the standard of living of the masses; it makes the people less efficient.
• Rural areas have become the worst sufferers. The problems faced by the rural areas are lower per capita, availability of land; increased subdivision and fragmentation of land holdings, disguised unemployment, increase in indebtness etc., which all contribute to reduced efficiency and poverty in rural areas.

Conclusions

In India rapid population growth has thus hampered economic growth and this prevented any substantial reduction in poverty of the masses. To conclude, population explosion aggravates the poverty, worsens the unemployment situation, reduces per capita income and increases proportion of unproductive people, hampers capital formation and makes the people inefficient.
Therefore, an all out effort has to be made to reduce birth rate through a comprehensive programme of family planning so that sufficient resources are released for the economic development of the country. It is found that in India Poverty itself is also the main cause of rapid population growth. Poverty prevents better education and better living standard. Thus, population explosion is both a cause and an effect of poverty .