The distribution within a group of people of specified individual attributes such as sex, age, marital status, education, occupation, and relationship to the head of household is called Population composition. Population is divided into two parts-rural and urban on the basis of the size and occupation of settlements. The rural population consists of small sized settlements scattered over the countryside. Urban population is one that lives in large size settlements i.e. towns and cities. The composition of Indian population with respect to their rural-urban characteristics, language, religion and pattern of occupation will be discussed below:
Rural – Urban Composition
An important indicator of social and economic characteristics is the composition of population by their respective places of residence. For the first time since Independence, the absolute increase in population is more in urban areas that in rural areas. Rural – Urban distribution: 68.84% & 31.16%. Level of urbanization increased from 27.81% in 2001 Census to 31.16% in 2011 Census. The proportion of rural population declined from 72.19% to 68.84%
Linguistic Composition
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. Population Growth rate of various religion has come down in the last decade (2001-2011). Hindu Population Growth rate slowed down to 16.76 % from previous decade figure of 19.92% while Muslim witness sharp fall in growth rate to 24.60% (2001-2011) from the previous figure of 29.52 % (1991-2001). Such sharp fall in population growth rate for Muslims didn't happened in the last 6 decades. Christian Population growth was at 15.5% while Sikh population growth rate stood at 8.4%. The most educated and wealthy community of Jains registered least growth rate in 2001-2011 with figure of just 5.4%. The Growth rate of Hindus, Muslims and Christian is expected to fall more in upcoming 2021 census while other religions like Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism are expected to remain stable for next 2 decades considering already slowed down growth rate of these religions.
All India Religion Census Data 2011
Religion | Percentage | Estimated | Total | Male | Female | State Majority |
All Religion | 100.00% | 121 Crores | 1,210,854,977 | 623,270,258 | 587,584,719 | 35 |
Hindu | 79.80% | 96.62 Crores | 966,257,353 | 498,306,968 | 467,950,385 | 28 |
Muslim | 14.23% | 17.22 Crores | 172,245,158 | 88,273,945 | 83,971,213 | 2 |
Christian | 2.30% | 2.78 Crores | 27,819,588 | 13,751,031 | 14,068,557 | 4 |
Sikh | 1.72% | 2.08 Crores | 20,833,116 | 10,948,431 | 9,884,685 | 1 |
Buddhist | 0.70% | 84.43 Lakhs | 8,442,972 | 4,296,010 | 4,146,962 | - |
Jain | 0.37% | 44.52 Lakhs | 4,451,753 | 2,278,097 | 2,173,656 | - |
Other Religion | 0.66% | 79.38 Lakhs | 7,937,734 | 3,952,064 | 3,985,670 | - |
Not Stated | 0.24% | 28.67 Lakhs | 2,867,303 | 1,463,712 | 1,403,591 | - |
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