Registration of Births & Deaths suggests trends
Morung Express News
Dimapur | January 5
Is there a shift of Nagaland’s population from the rural to the urban?
There appear to be so, if one goes by Civil Registration (Births & Deaths) recorded by the Department of Economics and Statistics (DES), Government of Nagaland.
According to its last report, ‘Working of Registration of Births & Deaths Act 1969 for the year 2016,’ the population appears to be increasingly moving to urban centers in the last couple of years, making for larger towns with greater population density.
This is construed through the data collected on births & deaths registered in rural and urban areas of the State while keeping in mind that the rate of natural increase of a population depends on birth and death rates.
Upward rise in the urban
A comparative study of the birth and death in urban and rural areas from 2004 till 2014 indicates that the former registered higher figures than the latter on both events.
For instance in 2004, the number of birth registered in the rural area was 23433 and 21696 in the urban areas. There was 3180 death registered during the indicated year in the rural areas and 2869 in the urban areas.
Till 2014, the same trend continues. There was 37602 birth and 1052 registered from the rural areas while as the urban areas registered 21348 birth and 923 deaths.
However, the data collected of 2015 and 2016 birth and death records becomes an eye opener. During 2015, the department registered 30903 births and 708 deaths in rural areas where as there was 48636 birth and 1361 deaths from the urban areas.
Similarly, during 2016, rural areas registered 36416 births and 705 deaths while in the urban area there were 36568 births and 1432 deaths.
Possible factors
This upward rise of the births and deaths rates in the urban areas in the recent years can be attributed to the population migrating from the rural to the urban areas, besides other factors.
Generally, people migrate for economic/employment opportunities, but the specific reasons can be categorized as either "push" or "pull" factors.
Push factors include what makes the people move away from a place—for instance, a lack of jobs or social opportunities. Pull factors, meanwhile, are why people want to come to a place, for reasons such as better job opportunities or easier access to amenities, including education and healthcare.
Today, 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 68% by 2050.
Projections show that urbanization, the gradual shift in residence of the human population from rural to urban areas, combined with the overall growth of the world’s population could add another 2.5 billion people to urban areas by 2050, with close to 90% of this increase taking place in Asia and Africa, according to a new United Nations data.
A possible reason could also be the enhancement of registration process in urban areas. According to department’s data, as of April 2017, there were 1427 registration centers functioning in the State out of which 1395 are in the rural areas and 32 in the urban areas.
However, the DES noted that the level of registration has considerably improved in the urban areas “with the persistent efforts of the staff deployed for the purpose and the organizational measures taken in the recent years.”
The 2011 census says Nagaland had an urban population of 570966 while the rural population was 1407536.
It remains to be seen whether the declining trend in rural and the upward trend in urban areas are projected in the subsequent reports by DES. If so, the next census slated in 2021 could tell an altogether different tale.
