Age Distribution

Between 1971 and 1991, the proportion of population under the age of 20 years fell marginally - both in India and West Bengal - in favour of the working age groups, indicating perhaps a slight fall in dependency ratios (relating to average number of (non-working) persons below 15 years and above 60 years taken together, that are dependant on a person of working age ).According to COI 1991, in West Bengal younger girl children up to 6 years, girl children aged 0-14 years, adolescent girls (11-18 years), women in the reproductive age group (15-45 years) and those in the economically active age group ( 15-59 years) accounted for 23.4, 37.5, 22.4, 60.3 and 74.7 per cent of the female population respectively. Older women aged 50 years and  above constituted  12.5 per cent of the female population, a higher   proportion than that found in the male population. This is now a worldwide trend and older women have to be recognised as a specially vulnerable social group as they are more likely to be widowed, physically infirm and lacking in assets, capabilities  and  kin support .

Life Expectancy at Birth (LEB)

This variable is an important component of human development indices. Recent projections have shown that for both women and men, LEB in West Bengal have been rising steadily during the past few decades, though the female LEB continued to trail behind the male LEB . This situation changed during the 1990s when both converged and the female LEB overtook its male counterpart in 2001 by a significant margin, as shown in Table D 1.For India as a whole, the trends were similar, but the gain in female LEB was smaller . In 2001 female and male LEB for the state were estimated at 69 and 65 years respectively, both higher than the respective all-India levels of  65 and 64 years.[i]But as shown in our Appendix Table AD 2, certain districts in West Bengal still have a comparatively low LEB of less than 60 years (for example Malda, Koch Behar, Birbhum and Murshidabad), denoting relative backwardness.

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