Delhi: demography
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Demographic trends
2018- 2021, 2022
TNN, Dec 8, 2023: The Times of India
Sex ratio in city dipped to 929 in ’22 from 932 in ’21
New Delhi : The sex ratio at birth in the Delhi dipped to 929 in 2022 from 932 a year earlier, according to a report published by the Delhi government. The report also said the birth rate in Delhi increased from 13.1 per thousand population in 2021 to 14.2 in 2022, while the death rate declined from 8.3 per thousand population in 2021, when the Covid pandemic was at its peak, to 6.1 last year.
In 2018, there were 924 girls born for every 1,000 boys and 920 in 2019 before climbing to 933 in 2020 and 932 in 2021.
The report also revealed a significant jump in the average number of births per day in Delhi from 745 in 2021 to 823 in 2022. TNN
Average Number Of Births Per Day Up From 745 To 823
In Over 37% Of Cases, Mother In The Age Group Of 25-29 Yrs
Responding to the figures in the annual report on registration of births and deaths in Delhi for 2022, Arun Yadav, former director of hospital administration in the erstwhile North Delhi Municipal Corporation, said, “The sex ratio at birth data shows a marginal dip this year. But it is a one-year comparison. A better trend is visible if we look at the figures of the last five years.”
A Delhi government official similarly commented, “This is a very small decline in sex ratio. We cannot completely rule out people not opting for a second child if their first was a son, but such thinking is rare in Delhi, especially in urban areas.”
The report revealed a significant jump in the average number of births per day in Delhi from 745 in 2021 to 823 in 2022. Out of the total births registered, 1,55,670 (51.8%) were of males and 1,44,581 (48.1%) of females, while 99 births were deemed to belong to the ‘others’ category.
Explaining the rise in the birth rate, Yadav said, “This signifies multiple factors, such as the health infrastructure improving, availability of better vaccines and medicines and migration. A lot of people migrate from other states to Delhi because of better job prospects.” The death rate decreasing was obvious, Yadav added, given that 2021 was a pandemic year and this has severely hit the city’s health infrastructure. The report analysed the age of the mother at the time of delivery and determined that in the maximum cases (37.5%), the maternal age was 25-29 years, followed by 30.6% cases where the mother was 20-24 years and 29.7% where the mother was more than 29 years. It was also observed that in 2.2% of the births, the age of the mother was under 19 years.
The major causes of institutional deaths of babies in 2022 seemed to indicate that 14.9% of the mortalities could be attributed to septicaemia, 11.5% to pulmonary and heart diseases, 7.6% to shock, 4.4% due to liver diseases and 4.3% to tuberculosis. The Covid coronavirus caused 1.6% of the deaths. As obstetrician Manisha Ranjan explained, “Septicaemia is a problem mostly in the rural pockets of Delhi where prenatal care is neglected. In the urban areas, there are less chances of death due to septicaemia. Medical facilities like ultrasound can also pick up pulmonary circulation and other heart conditions in time for proper treatment.”
Of the total births, 2,82,389 (94%) took place in healthcare centres and only 17,961 (5.9%) were domiciliary in nature. A total of 1,86,905 (66.2%) of the institutional births took place in government hospitals. A majority of the births (89.2%) were urban while births in rural areas accounted for 10.8%, according to the Delhi government report.
A government official said, “Institutional deliveries took a severe hit during the Covid period, but the situation has normalised and hospital births are bound to increase.”
In the case of domiciliary birth events, the majority of births (60.6%) occurred with the assistance of relatives. In fact, untrained midwives assisted in 25.6% of the births at home. Only in 13% of the births were a doctor, nurse or trained midwife present.