INDIA’S YOUNG POPULATION

Key findings:

• For the first time, more than half of India’s population, irrespective of gender or whether it’s in urban or rural areas, is now 25 years or older.
  
  
• Overall, the under-25s in 2018 constituted 46.9% of the population. Nationally, 46.3% of the female population was below 25 years of age compared to 47.4% of males.
  
  
• Even among rural men, the proportion of those below 25 years of age had fallen to 49.9% from 50.2% in 2017. In all other categories — urban women, urban men and rural women — those under 25 already constituted less than half the population.
  
  
• As India’s fertility rate goes down steadily along with a rise in life expectancy, the proportion of its young population is shrinking and the median age has been increasing.
  
  
• However, Bihar, with the highest fertility rate of 3.2, had the highest proportion of its population below 25 years, 57.2%, followed by UP with the second-highest fertility rate of 2.9, where the under-25 year population was 52.7%.