The birth rate is slow to change. This is because unlike the death ra…

The correct answer is Option (3) → Socio-cultural phenomenon

Note: The given answer is as per the official NTA Answer Key. However, Option (4) can also be considered correct, as explained below.

Option (1) Political phenomenon — Incorrect. The state can run programmes, but the number of children a family has is not decided by politics; it rests on the family’s own ideas and practices.

Option (2) Physiological phenomenon — Incorrect. Bearing children is a biological capacity, but how many children are born is decided by society, not by the body. If it were only physiological, it would not vary so widely between states of the same country.

Option (3) Socio-cultural phenomenon — Correct as per NTA. The death rate fell sharply once famines and epidemics were brought under control. Unlike the death rate, the birth rate has not registered a sharp fall, because the birth rate is a sociocultural phenomenon that is relatively slow to change: family size depends on people’s values and ways of life, and these change only as education and awareness spread and infant mortality declines.

Option (4) Socio-economic phenomenon — Can also be considered correct. Increased levels of prosperity exert a strong downward pull on the birth rate, and family size begins to fall once infant mortality declines and education and awareness rise. These are economic and social changes, so the birth rate can also be called a socio-economic phenomenon. Option (3), however, is the most appropriate answer: the birth rate is slow to change because it rests on values about family size, which makes it a sociocultural phenomenon.