Composition of Population

Composition of Population

Composition of Population includes sex ratio, literacy rate, age pyramids etc.

Sex Ratio

The sex ratio is the ratio of males to females in a population.

As of 2014, the global sex ratio at birth is estimated at 107 boys to 100 girls (1000 boys per 934 girls).

The sex ratio of India is 933 females for every 1000 males according to 2011.

Kerala has the highest sex ratio in the country with 1084 females for 1000 males followed by Puducherry with 1037 females for 1000 males and Tamil Nadu with 996 females for 1000 males.

Fact File

Qatar-315 Males per 100 females (2019)

With an astounding ratio of 315 males to a 100 females, Qatar holds the number one spot among countries with the highest male to female ratio in the world in 2018.

What Are Population Age Pyramids?

Population pyramids are graphical representations of the age and sex of a population. For this reason, population pyramids are also referred to as age-sex pyramids. We refer to these graphs as pyramids because they are usually shaped like triangles and population pyramids also take other shapes. Population pyramids usually have males on the left side and females on the right. There is also a vertical line in the middle of the graph that separates the males from the females.

Fact File

Latvia, country with the highest sex ratio in the world.

Latvia is a former Soviet Union country and experienced a great decline in male population during World War two. By 2015, there were 84.8 males for every 100 females. The proportion of the female was 54.10% of the total population. Men in Latvia have a high mortality rate due to issues such as alcoholism, smoking, and careless car driving. Around 80% of suicides in Latvia are committed by men, often because of unemployment and unrealized financial goals. Women enjoy a longer life expectancy living 11 years more than men.

Literacy Rate

Total number of literate persons in a given age group, expressed as a percentage of the total population in that age group.

Literacy rates continue to rise from one generation to the next. Yet according to new data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, there are still 750 million illiterate adults, two-thirds of whom are women. These numbers are a stark reminder of the work ahead to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4 and 5 and the Education 2030 targets.

Literacy rate variations between states in India

India's literacy rate is at 74.04%. Kerala has achieved a literacy rate of 93.91%. Bihar is the least literate state in India, with a literacy of 63.82%. Several other social indicators of the two states are correlated with these rates, such as life expectancy at birth (71.61 for males and 75 for females in Kerala, 65.66 for males and 64.79 for females in Bihar), infant mortality per 1,000 live births (10 in Kerala, 61 in Bihar), birth rate per 1,000 people (16.9 in Kerala, 30.9 in Bihar) and death rate per 1,000 people (6.4 in Kerala, 7.9 in Bihar).

Six  Indian  states  account  for  about 70% of all illiterates in India: Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. Slightly less than half of all Indian illiterates (48.12%) are in the six Hindi-speaking states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.

Age - Sex pyramids

There are three types of Age - Sex pyramids: expansive, constrictive, and stationary.

Expansive Age - Sex pyramids depict populations that have a larger percentage of people in younger age groups. Populations with this shape usually have high fertility rates with lower life expectancies. Many third world countries have expansive Age - Sex pyramids. Such a population pyramid is a characteristic of newly developing countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Kenya, and some countries of Latin America.

Constrictive Age - Sex pyramids are named so because they are constricted at the bottom. There is a lower percentage of younger people. Constrictive Age - Sex pyramids show declining birth rates, since each succeeding age group is getting smaller and smaller. The United States has a constrictive Age - Sex pyramid.

Stationary Age - Sex pyramids are those that show a somewhat equal proportion of the population in each age group. There is not a decrease or increase in population; it is stable. Austria has a stationary Age - Sex pyramid.

The Purpose of the Age - Sex Pyramid

The purpose of making this Age - Sex pyramid is to find out the comparison between the number of men and women, the number of workers, and the structure of the population in a country quickly. In addition, the creation of the Age - Sex Pyramid also has a purpose to assist the government in taking development policies.