Human Resources in India
ICSE Class 8 · Geography · Chapter 11
What this chapter covers
- Human resources: meaning
- Distribution of population in India
- Role of health and education
- Skilled and unskilled human resources
- Impact of skilled human resources on development
Key points
- Human resources are the people of a country, valued for their work, skills, knowledge and ideas.
- People make natural resources useful; a healthy, educated and skilled population is an asset, not a burden.
- About 69 per cent of Indians lived in rural areas and about 31 per cent in urban areas at the 2011 Census.
- Population density = total population ÷ land area; India's average was about 382 persons per square kilometre in 2011.
- The plains and coasts are crowded; deserts and high mountains are thinly peopled.
- Sex ratio is the number of females per 1,000 males; India's figure in 2011 was 943, with Kerala highest and Haryana lowest among the states.
- Health and education are the two main ways of developing human resources.
- Skilled workers have special training; unskilled workers rely mainly on physical effort; training can turn one into the other.
- Skilled human resources raise output, income and the use of natural resources, as seen in Bengaluru's IT industry and the Green Revolution in Punjab.
- Areas rich in minerals can lag behind when they lack skilled local workers, schools and health care.
Questions answered
What are human resources?
Human resources are the people of a country, seen as a source of work, skills, knowledge and ideas that help the country grow.
Why are people called the most important resource of a country?
People make every other resource useful, and their knowledge and skill can keep growing, while natural resources are limited.
Give two reasons why the Ganga plains are densely populated.
They have flat land with fertile alluvial soil and plenty of water, and they have good transport and many towns.
A town has 30,000 people living on an area of 50 square kilometres. Find its population density.
Population density = 30,000 ÷ 50 = 600 persons per square kilometre.
Define sex ratio. What does a low sex ratio tell you about an area?
Sex ratio is the number of females for every 1,000 males in a population. A low sex ratio suggests that girls and women are not cared for equally, for example because of a preference for sons.
A district has 5,000 males and 4,600 females. Calculate its sex ratio.
Sex ratio = (4,600 ÷ 5,000) × 1,000 = 920.
Explain briefly how good health makes a person a better human resource.
A healthy person attends work or school regularly, works with energy and earns more, and the family does not spend its savings on illness.
Give two examples each of skilled and unskilled workers.
Skilled: an electrician and a nurse. Unskilled: a head-load worker and a farm labourer cutting crops by hand.