BackOpinion | Do not let national statistics turn needlessly ideological
Reliable sets of data are invaluable to a country’s broad plan for the future and addressal of fast-evolving policy challenges
PremiumIt is not just cricket statistics that are changing in unfamiliar ways. Indian population, birth, death, health, household habits and consumption data are also shifting—steadily in some instances and rapidly in others.
India’s population statistics are changing gradually but steadily. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign phrase of “125 crore Indians" will no longer be a valid approximation by the next general election, and will most likely have to be modified to “140 crore". India’s population now grows at about 1.02% a year, which is likely to fall below 1% by the time of the next census in 2021. The population distribution by age cohorts has moved from a classic “pyramid" in 1950 to a “sail pattern". The bulge has moved up the age scale, with declining birth and death rates and an increase in how long the average citizen is expected to live. India’s life expectancy is now estimated at 67.4 years for males and 70.2 for females, according to the latest National Health Profile (NHP 2019). While the infant mortality rate, measured as deaths per 1,000 live births, has fallen to a quarter of that at independence; it is still at about 33, placing India in the bottom-quartile of all countries. Together with maternal and neo-natal mortality, these numbers are still unacceptably high. Looking ahead, India’s population is expected to peak around 2060, with a big demographic bulge set to enter the workforce between now and 2040. Considering that the total fertility rate will continue to fall and life expectancy will increase, India will be confronted by an ageing population in two decades, with those over 60 expected to double to over 15% of the population.
Unlike demographics, India’s household characteristics are changing rapidly. Literacy has risen to about 73%, but is still well behind most large countries. Female literacy, at just 65%, is a cause for concern. Also, 15% of India’s households still have a thatched, bamboo or mud roof and only 46% have drinking water on their premises. On health, mosquitoes pose the biggest menace, with malaria, Japanese encephalitis, chikungunya and dengue impairing health around the country. Nearly 70% of total morbidity from communicable diseases is down to acute respiratory infection. About 2.2% of all Indians, or nearly 30 million, have disabilities; of these, about 20% each have disabilities related to moving, seeing and hearing, and 8% have multiple disabilities. A recent first-ever comprehensive national nutrition survey reveals that nearly 450 million women and children have anaemia, 72 million adults have diabetes and 170 million adults are either overweight or obese. India’s transition from an underweight to an overweight population in a few decades has come at significant cost to national health and well-being, and to overburdened health systems. The five leading factors that put quality-of-life at risk are child and maternal malnutrition, air pollution, dietary factors, high blood pressure and high blood glucose.
Employment and economic indicators are changing even faster. However, national data on household consumption expenditure and employment has been withheld or delayed, and this has led to much extrapolation and conjecture. Connecting the dots on employment suggests a very grim picture. A recent paper by Santosh Mehrotra and Jajati Parida written for Azim Premji University says that a decline in employment in agriculture and manufacturing and the slow growth of construction jobs have stalled the process of India’s structural transformation. There is an alarming rise in unemployment among the educated youth that has given rise not only to an increase in number of “disheartened" people in the labour force, but also an actual decline in that number—a phenomenon unprecedented in a growing economy. Real wages in both urban and rural India have stagnated over the last seven years.
At a time when data must inform and arm our response to fast-evolving situations, the government appears to be arbitrarily withholding, changing statistical methods and redacting data. Instead of following a periodical release pattern, the government selectively chooses the data and time of release. Only last week, five reports due at various points over the year were released on a single day. The survey for household consumer expenditure for 2017-18 remains withheld.
A major trend is the significant dispersion in data between various Indian states on almost every metric. Navigating this heterogeneity is going to require nuanced economic and political skills. Schools will need to be closed and opened across India, and bacteriological problems will have to be dealt with along with mental health issues and non-communicable diseases, even as livelihood matters that will dominate some states for decades will have to be juggled with retirement issues in other states. Data will become a most necessary input in tackling these issues. We must refrain from turning data ideological. There is plenty of room for that in analyses and inferences.
P.S: “The suppression of essential data is terrible for accountability and for ensuring that citizens benefit from official data collection that is paid for with their taxes. It is counterproductive for the government, which may be kept in the dark about actual trends in the economy," said a recent statement by 200 scholars from around India and the world demanding that Indian data be released.
Narayan Ramachandran is chairman, InKlude Labs. Read Narayan’s Mint columns at www.livemint.com/avisiblehand
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