Projecting the regional explicit socioeconomic heterogeneity in India by residence

Samir K.C., Shanghai University and International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Markus Speringer, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

This study is motivated by two research questions: (1) How does the accounting of socioeconomic heterogeneity, measured by educational attainment, improve population projections for India?, and (2) How will changing patterns in urbanization affect the population projection, depending on the spatial scale (national vs. subnational) considered in the projections? Projections at national and subnational level can provide essential information for planning and implementing government policies, including the allocation of budget and resources. In a country like India national projections would be too short-sighted considering its sheer population size of 1.2 billion inhabitants in 2011. We aim to show not only the spatial and social heterogeneity of urban and rural India, but also how we implemented this in our subnational projection model as well as how we applied for settlement reclassifications from rural to urban. This allows us to show the potential population development of India up to 2050 and how and why the consideration of different spatial levels affect the projection outcome.