Baby boom is called population explosion. There is sudden and fast increase in the birth of babies. India is caught in the grip of population explosion. Here birth rates are higher than death rates in spite of family planning measures.
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The population in the organism tends to increase as long as its environment allows. Thus, most populations are in a state of dynamic equilibrium which is influenced by the local environment and by the interaction of the organisms with other populations in the community.
Malthus concluded that human populations tend to grow until they exhaust their resources and become subject to famine, disease or war. Malthus painted a bleak picture of the countries if the population continues to rise at such an alarming speed.
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He opined that there will be an imbalance between population growth and the food supply. Malthus stressed that the nation should immediately adopt preventive checks to control the population otherwise nature shall interfere through its untold miseries.
Malthus’s theory of population to some extent is found applicable in under-developed, developing countries amongst which India is one.
The population of India in 1950-51 was 34.7 crores and now it stands more than 100 crores. India is having food problem due to faster growth in population. Increasing rate of population has reduced the ratio between man and land. As described by Malthus, we are using family planning methods to control our population.
India is overpopulated country. Thomas Robert Malthus in his book’ Principles of Population’ mentioned that human population in every country increase faster than the means of subsistence (food).
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Though the population has increased in every country of the world but in India the growth rate of population is quite high.
Today India is the second populous country in the world after China. Amongst States, Population-wise U.P. is the biggest state, Kolkata is the most populous city but now Bombay has been declared most populous city. Being the second populous country in the world, India constitutes about 16 percent of the total population of the world.
In other words, every seventh person on the earth is an Indian. India on the other hand, has got only 2.4 percent of the total land area in the world. China with about 20 percent of the world’s population has nearly 7 percent of the land area; the U.S.A. maintains only 6 percent of the total world population and about 7 percent of the total area.
Causes of Population Growth:
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Population growth is a function of birth rates and death rates. If BRs (birth rates) increases faster than DRs (death rates), population increases. In India causes of population growth are:
(1) Marriage is universal in India which means every girl gets married sooner or later.
(2) The average age of women in India for bearing conception is low (15-18) years.
(3) The population of women in the age of child bearing age in 15-49 years and 84.53 percent of the total female population falls in the reproductive age.
(4) The joint family system further provides increase to population growth.
(5) Wide spread poverty and no source of entertainment.
(6) Children in rural areas are considered asset rather than liability since 75% of India’s population live in villages.