SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This thesis is an examination of the demographic characteristics of urban localities that were subject to a planned industrialisation strategy in India beginning in the 1950s. It studies the local age and sex structures that emerged and evolved in these populations over time, down to 1971, using the Censuses as the main sources of data, and focusing on the iron and steel producing region of Eastern India, with comparisons drawn from the West of the country. To aid interpretation a simulation model of urban demographic growth is constructed, and various growth patterns are projected. At the same time, the empirical evidence of migration and fertility differentials in different types of towns is explored. The study addresses the hypothesis that modern technology, in combination with factor proportions typical of a developing country (with relatively abundant labour) gives rise to the formation of local population structures that are unusual if not unique in history - (some comparative historical material from 19th Century England is presented here) and that these demographic features, as they emerge over time, carry exceptional implications for the allocation of local welfare expenditure (especially in the field of housing), and for the local labour market, as subsequent generations enter the labour force. The implications are of most interest in the case of the fastest growing localities (related to heavy industry), and the slowest growing localities, and these therefore are discussed the most. The welfare and employment implications are further analysed at the level of the household (using additionally the 1959 Labour Bureau survey data), and the strategies adopted by the households themselves to mitigate the more adverse consequences, especially in single-industry towns, are investigated and assessed. Similarly, strategies that have been adopted by the State are reviewed, and alternatives suggested.