Revision summary
Malthus and transition still frame public talk. Caldwell links fertility fall to reversed wealth flows and schooling. Boserup sees people as a force for agrarian intensification. Son preference and sex ratio are socio-cultural, as Sen showed. Ageing, migration, and slums are today’s problems, not a single explosion.
Model answer
Introduction
Contemporary population problems are not only too many births. They include ageing, migration, sex ratio, and urban crowding. Theories that ignore culture will misread all four.
Body
Older theories
- Malthus feared geometric mouths against arithmetic food. India’s public debate still hears him, though Green Revolution and PDS changed the food term.
- Marx treated surplus people as a product of capitalist labour demand, not of nature.
- Demographic transition (Notestein and others) expected death rates to fall first, then births, after industrialisation.
Socio-cultural readings
- Dumont and Indian family studies linked fertility to joint household and son preference, not only to income.
- Caldwell’s wealth-flow theory: births fall when children cost more than they return, a school-and-dowry story as much as a factory story.
- Boserup reversed Malthus: population can drive intensification. Indian irrigation and labour-intensive rice fit better than a famine script.
- Sex-ratio problems, as in Amartya Sen’s missing women, are cultural-technical: ultrasound plus patriliny, not a Malthusian leftover.
- Ageing in Kerala and Europe is the late transition. Youth bulges and slum density are the middle.
Now
- Climate and displacement add a new Malthusian tone, but the mechanism is inequality of carbon and housing, which Davis on slums would stress.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD MA[Malthus] --> ANX[Scarcity anxiety] DT[Transition] --> L[Low death then low birth] CA[Caldwell] --> W[Wealth flow] BO[Boserup] --> IN[Intensification] SE[Sen] --> SR[Sex ratio]
Conclusion
Read population through transition, wealth flows, Boserup, and gender. Malthus names anxiety. Culture and class name the actual Indian problems of sons, cities, and care of the old.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
What do you understand by blood group systems? How is HLA system different from those based on red cell antigens?
Next question on this syllabus topic (2022 · Q8(b)). View answer →
-
Has India completed the transition?
The TFR has fallen near replacement, but state gaps, sex ratio, and ageing now dominate the file.
-
Is urban crowding a birth problem?
It is mainly a housing, migration, and labour problem. Fertility in cities is already lower.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2022 · Q8(b) · Anthropology GS 1 · 15 marks
What do you understand by blood group systems? How is HLA system different from those based on red cell antigens? -
2016 · Q5(a) · Anthropology GS 1 · 10 marks
Rh-Blood Group
More from this topic
Q8(b) · UPSC Mains 2022 · Anthropology GS 1 · 15 marks
What do you understand by blood group systems? How is HLA system different from those based on red cell antigens?
Age, sex and population variation as genetic marker
A blood group system is a locus of cell-surface antigens. ABO and Rh are red-cell systems for transfusion. HLA is the MHC on leukocytes, used in graft matching. HLA polymorphism dwarfs ABO. Anthropology used both as population markers, not as races.
Q5(a) · UPSC Mains 2016 · Anthropology GS 1 · 10 marks
Rh-Blood Group
Age, sex and population variation as genetic marker
Rh groups centre on the D antigen. Positive means D present; negative means D absent. An Rh-negative mother can be sensitised by an Rh-positive fetus. Anti-D prophylaxis prevents most haemolytic disease. Frequencies differ by population, as a polymorphism.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.