Regions of Demographic Dynamism in Haryana

Abstract

There are different types of population structures in different parts of the world, the nature of demographic challenges also differ accordingly. The developed countries like USA, Canada, Japan, Australia and many European countries face a problem of slow or even negative population growth. The main concern of the government in these countries remains on population ageing, decline in working force and increasing dependency ratio. The developing countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Latin American countries have a common problem of too many people. Their major focus remains upon providing health care services, urban housing and solving social problems like unemployment and social crimes. It is in this context that the studies of population change are of great significance in a developing country like India, which holds the second largest population base in the world, next only to China. Haryana with a total population size of 2,53,53,081 persons as per 2011 provisional census figures, contributes to 2.09 per cent of the country’s total population over 1.4 per cent of its total geographical area. The state witnessed significant changes in its population in terms of size, structure and composition since its inception in 1966. The present paper is an attempt to analyse these changes in a spatial context. The study tries to analyse the changes in population structure and its composition in the state during the period 1971 – 2001 and identify the population regions on the basis of a composite index computed from these changes in population attributes.
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