The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) fifth edition verified evidence of a demographic transition in India. For the first time since the NFHS began in 1992, women outnumbered males, with 1,020 women for every 1,000 men. In the most recent poll, 991 women were found for every 1,000 males in 2015-16.
Decadal Survey Authentic
Only the decadal census is used as an official marker of population changes in India, and it is accompanied by a more extensive surveillance program. The NFHS surveys are smaller, but they are performed at the district level and serve as a foreshadowing of what is to come.
However, the sex ratio at birth for infants born in the previous five years has only improved slightly, from 919 per 1,000 males in 2015-16 to 929 per 1,000, indicating that boys continue to have higher survival rates than girls on average.
What the survey reveals
According to the 5th edition survey of NFHS, there were more females than males in most of the states and union territories (UTs) of India. Few of the states are Gujarat, Maharashtra, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, and Union territories like Jammu & Kashmir, Chandigarh, Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Ladakh had fewer women than males.
Indian Government has always took action and started various schemes and took initiatives like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao to uplift the condition of female in the society. However, this is good sign to all of these states and UTs saw an increase in the number of women in their population .
India : one of the most populous countries in the world
India remains poised to be the foremost populous country within the world with the present projection by the world organization population division forecasting that India’s population will peak around 1.6 to 1.8 billion from 2040-2050.
A Government report last year projected that India would overtake China because the world’s most populous country around 2031 — almost a decade later than the United Nations projection of 2022.
NFHS-5 survey: Area & Population
Survey of NFHS 5TH edition survey work has been conducted in around 6.1 lakh sample households from 707 districts (as on March, 2017) of the country; covering 724,115 women and 101,839 men to provide disaggregated estimates up to district level.
