Contributed by National Academy of Statistical Administration, India

 Decentralised, district-based approach to population and planning.  Demographic and development diversity across the districts is well known.  exogenous variables and policy and programme interventions affect demographic and development situation differentially across the districts.

 Analysis of demographic diversity across 640 districts of India on the basis of provisional data of the 2011 population census.  How demographic diversity across districts contributes to demographic diversity across states.  Policy and programme implications of demographic diversity across districts.

 Diversity is measured on a two-dimensional scale  The dimension of intensiveness  The dimension of extensiveness  Intensity is measured in terms of differentials and concentration; differentials are the most basic.  Extensiveness is the ratio of the population of the district to the population of the country.

 The index of the intensity of diversity is defined as I dc(v) = log(V d /V c )  The index of extensiveness is defined as E dc = P d /P c  The index of diversity is defined as D dc(v) = E dc *(I dc(v) ) 2

 The Diversity Index is always positive. The limiting value is zero meaning no diversity.  The higher is the index, the larger is the diversity.  It is a fuller measure of diversity as it takes into account the relative size of the population.  It can be decomposed.

 Provisional figures of 2011 population census.  The following 7 variables can be estimated: 1. Population density 2. Age composition index (P 0-6 /P) 3. Age composition index (P 0-6 /P 7+ ) 4. Population sex ratio 5. Child sex ratio 6. Fertility index (P 0-6 /F 7+ )

 All the six variables vary widely across the districts.  The pattern of distribution is different for different variables.  The distribution of population density is highly skewed with a very high value of kurtosis.  In 11 districts, population density is more than 10 thousand persons per sq km.

 District Mumbai in Maharashtra has the highest population density in the country – more than 50 thousand per sq km.  In all districts of Delhi, population density is more than 3500 per sq km.  The distribution of the index of age composition and the index of fertility is very similar across districts.

 The skewness in the distribution of the two variables across districts is positive but not very large.  The Kurtosis is negative meaning that there is no district with exceptionally high value of these indexes.  The distribution of districts by sex ratio has been found to be negatively skewed.

 There are some districts with extremely low proportion of females to males.  In 9 districts, the sex ratio is less than 800 females for every 1000 males.  In Daman and Diu, there are only 533 females for every 1000 males.  In 101 districts, females outnumbered males at the 2011 population census.

 The distribution of child sex ratio is more sharply negatively skewed than the population sex ratio.  There are however only 6 districts where the child sex ratio is estimated to be less than 800. Four of these 6 districts are in Haryana.  There are only three districts where female children outnumbered males children.

 The distribution of the sex ratio of the population aged 7 years and above is very much similar to the sex ratio of the total population.  In Daman and Diu, there are less than 500 females 7+ for every 1000 males 7+.  In 117 districts, females outnumber males in this age group with Mahe leading the list.

 The district level diversity is the highest in case of population density but lowest in case of the sex ratio of the population aged 0-6 years.  The kernel density plots confirm this observation. These plots are always positively skewed because the diversity index used in the present analysis is by definition always positive.

 Most of the demographic diversity is the result of extreme situation in only a few districts.  Only 10 per cent of the districts account for  75 per cent of the diversity in population density.  52 per cent of the diversity in age structure.  55 per cent of the diversity in population sex ratio.  49 per cent of the diversity in child sex ratio.  66 per cent of the diversity in sex ratio 7+.  49 per cent of the diversity in fertility index.

 In case of population density, within state variation accounts for 52 per cent of the total inter-district diversity in the country.  In case of fertility index more than 71 per cent of the diversity is accounted by between state variations.  Between state component is larger than within state component in five variables.

 Most of the demographic diversity is the result of the demographic situation in a few districts of the country.  This observation bears significance in the context of the persistence of social, economic, cultural and ecological diversity of the country.  Despite this diversity, the demographic situation is similar in most of the districts.

 In general, the inter-district diversity is largely the result of the diversity across states. Within states, the diversity across the districts is relatively low.  Demographic diversity across states in India is well known.  Provisional results of 2011 population census confirm that this diversity continue to persist.

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