Indian States By The Size Of Households

Decreasing Size Of Households In India

Family and households occupy a prominent position in the social life of a population. Any change in the size of these socio-economic institutions reflects a change in the economic, social, and demographic state of a region. In India, traditional families have been large and complex with an average household having a large number of family members. In such families, every member has a distinct role to play and there were usually clear distinctions between the role played by men and women in managing the household. With changing times, the joint families in India are falling apart and being replaced by smaller, nuclear families. Several reasons are responsible for a shift from the traditional family structure. The rapid pace of urbanization, industrialization, women empowerment, the spread of education, the influence of Western culture, lack of space, etc., are some of the factors that encourage the replacement of larger families with smaller ones. 

The Indian States By The Size Of Households

The data presented below is a listing of Indian states ranked by the increasing order of the average number of persons in a household. The data was compiled during the National Family health survey -3 (NFHS-3) conducted by the International Institute of Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai designated by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) of the Government of India. The survey results were released on October 11, 2007, and the summarized data is presented below:

What The Data Implicates?

From the data, it becomes clear that the average size of the Indian household in Tamil Nadu is the lowest while the value is the highest for the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, the most densely populated state in the country, and also in Jammu and Kashmir, the northernmost mountainous state of India.

From the data, we can also see that in general, the size of Indian households in usually larger in the northern states than in the southern ones. 

Analyzing the data below, here are the important points to be remembered:

• The average household size of India is 4.8 persons per household.
• In many parts of the country, the size of a rural household is larger than that of an urban household.
• In Uttar Pradesh, the households have the highest number of members with an average of 5.7 persons per household. Jammu and Kashmir also has 5.7 persons per household. These two states are closely followed by Rajasthan (5.5), Jharkhand (5.4), Bihar (5.4), Haryana (5.2), and Punjab (5.1). 
• According to researchers, a girl child fares better in a smaller household than a larger one. The larger households leads to fight for resources. Standard of living is higher in case of smaller families and individuals have better access to resources in such families.