CONCLUSIONS
It appears that demographically, in the future India will experience hyperdifferentiation, a term used in postmodern literature for extreme differentiation leading to dedifferentiation or new forms of integration, uncertain and unpredictable at the moment. While some States will be moving towards lower death and birth rates as predicted by classical demographic transition theory, others will be experiencing a second demographic transition, and in some there will be a demand for the third transition leading to higher fertility levels. There will be more of poor and rich division. Then within each state there will be high and low fertility districts, within each district high and low fertility blocks, and within blocks high and low fertility social classes. Within classes again there will be fragmentation due to Westernization, individualization and women's education.Urban and rural differences are likely to continue.
Migration will, however, become a more important issue than fertility and family planning. There are two types of migration: international and internal. In terms of statistics international migration will remain small as compared to the population of India. But its impact on economy, culture and state policy may be quite substantial. Internal migration will increase further. There will be rapid migration from population surplus areas to resource surplus areas, often leading to violent conflicts at the place of destination. There will also be more migration caused by new development projects, climate change, environmental risks, political and ethnic reasons and new economic policies. There are forces of globalization and glocalization. All this would make the future more uncertain and less amenable to understanding, in old sociological terms. |
