Answer:

There is a significant north-south divide on demographic growth in India as seen in the 2011 census.

♤ The southern states are showing faster decline in the population growth rate as compared to the northern states. For instance as per recent data, one in every 3 children in 0-14 is from UP or Bihar. On the other hands southern states have stabilized their population long back and are now seeing a rapid rise in their old age population.

♤ As a result of this, there is scarcity of unskilled labor in the south which is currently filled in by migration from other parts of the country.

♤ India will have extremely different structure of population across states; while in some states the population age structure will be adult concentrated and will move to old age, other states will have still more concentration of child and young population. This implies that the governments need entirely different policies to tackle issues in these contexts.

♤ It means that northern states need to invest more on education, skill building etc. While southern ones due to their ageing population should invest more on healthcare, pensions, insurance.