Mortality and migration

The death rate (also called the mortality rate) is the number of deaths for every 1,000 people in a year.

A low death rate tells you something good: people have good healthcare and better food (nutrition).

Child mortality = the number of children who die before the age of 5, for every 1,000 live births.

India has made huge progress. Child mortality fell from 271 per 1,000 in 1950 to 28 per 1,000 in 2023.

Read those two numbers together. In 1950, more than one child in four died before turning five. Today it is fewer than three in a hundred.

Life expectancy is the average number of years a newborn baby can expect to live, if living conditions stay as they are today.

India's life expectancy rose from just 30 years at Independence to 70 years in 2024.

Careful: a life expectancy of 70 does not mean everyone lives exactly 70 years. It is an average.

The fourth factor is migration: people moving from one place to another, within a country or to another country, to settle for a while or for good.

Why do people migrate?

• for better jobs;
• for education;
• sometimes pushed out by natural disasters (floods, earthquakes) or political trouble.

Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru have grown a lot because people moved there.

But when very many people crowd into a small area, it puts pressure on water, air and land, and strains transport and housing.

Think about it: when many young people leave a village for the city, the village may be left with fewer workers and more old people, and some houses stand empty. But the migrants may send money home.