Household size in Andhra Pradesh-an analysis of census data

At the national level the average household size in 1991 was 5.5 persons. By 2001 it has come down to 5.3 persons which further declined to 4.8 persons. It is a continuous decline in size from one census to another. All of the four Southern states of the country are having smaller than the national average household size in all the three successive censuses, while the Eastern states namely, Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand (2001 and 2011), Odisha, only Bihar and Jharkhand found to have larger household sizes than the national average. At state level the average household size was 4.6 (almost five persons) in 1991 which has come down to 3.9 (almost four persons) by 2011, which is 15.2 percentage points decline. Among the thirteen districts, four districts namely Ananthapur (5.1), Chittoor (4.7), YSR Kadapa (4.7) and Kurnool (5.4) are found to be having a larger average household size than the state (4.6) in the year 1991. All these districts are from the Rayalaseema region and have continued to be in the above state average household size in 2001 and 2011. Coastal region seems to have registered rather sharp and continuous decline in the average household size in the period 1991–2011. Of the thirty-eight mandals in the Srikakulam district in the year 1991, 11 mandals have reported an average household size larger than the corresponding district figure (4.6). There are large variations in the rate of decline in the average size of household over the three decades in all the three categories. Among the SC and ST populations, the SCs average household size has declined slightly faster at 4.9% than the STs where the average household size decline was only 2.3% during the 1991–2011 period in the district Srikakulam. There are sixteen mandals which are situated above the district average size of SC household population of 4.1. The average household size of ST population was 4.3, 4.4 and 4.2 respectively in 1991, 2001 and 2011. In these three censuses, 13, 8 and 14 mandals are in the above average household size for ST population in the three censuses. Another interesting aspect that comes to the fore is among the ST population in the Srikakulam district, there are 14 mandals where the average household size has in fact increased during the 1991–2001. During the 2001-11, 19 mandals in this social group-recorded positive growth meaning that the average household size has increased from the previous census year. This is against the general norm of a continuously declining average household size in all the other social categories and total population.The present household size of less than four along with a preference for a male child a situation may arise there may not be enough number of females to continue the family line. Keeping this eventuality in mind, the Government should plan to keep the household size minimum at four preferably with balanced sex ratio.