The Trend of the Birth Rate in India, 1911-50.

This article focuses on the trend of the birth rate in India between the period 1911 to 1950. The Government of India, in connection with the Census of 1951, has published a report entitled Estimation of Birth and Death Rates in India during 1941-50. In this report the actuaries associated with the census of 1951 have analysed a mass of material and have tried to arrive at firm estimates of the birth and death rates for different regions of India during 1941-50. Economist Kingsley Davis has also tried to compute birth estimates for the major provinces of India during 1926-30. These two publications thus enable you to examine two independently estimated rates of omission in the two decades, i.e. 1926-30 and 1941-50. In the present paper it will be shown that the formula devised for West Bengal is valid for a much larger area, comprising the provinces of Assam, Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh. The rates of omission estimated by the author's formula for 1921-30 will be compared with the corresponding rates of omission for 1926-30 as estimated by Kingsley Davis, and it will be shown that in all the cases the two agree quite closely.