A surprising trend in India’s mortality data has raised questions among demographers and health experts. Despite a decline in the overall death rate in 2022 compared to the peak pandemic year of 2021, the Sample Registration System (SRS) data shows a puzzling increase in deaths among people under the age of 25. This contrasts not only with the previous year but also with the pre-pandemic average, and conflicts with another official data source, creating a gap in understanding what caused the unusual rise.
The Sample Registration System (SRS), overseen by the Registrar General of India under the Home Ministry, is considered the most credible source for mortality and birth statistics in India. The 2022 SRS report, released on June 12, puts the crude death rate (CDR) at 6.8 per thousand, down from 7.5 in 2021 — a year marked by the devastating second wave of COVID-19. However, the projected 9.38 million deaths for 2022 remain substantially higher than the estimated 8.28 million deaths if 2019’s CDR of 6.0 had been applied to the same population.
Under-25 deaths show unexpected spike
While a drop in death rates for older age groups in 2022 is consistent with post-pandemic recovery, what stands out is the increase in mortality among those under 25, excluding children below five. This is particularly perplexing since the Civil Registration System (CRS) — another government-backed dataset — reported a decline in total deaths across most age groups for the same year. Notably, CRS data excluded Maharashtra due to missing age-wise figures for 2021.
Accidents, suicides not enough to explain the jump
The spike in under-25 deaths cannot be fully attributed to external causes like accidents or suicides. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), deaths due to accidents and suicides in 2022 increased marginally compared to 2021, but this only accounts for roughly 57,000 additional deaths — far short of the 1.1 million gap observed when comparing 2022 SRS figures to 2017-19 averages.
Experts suspect a possible sampling discrepancy within the SRS for 2022, but without unit-level data — which the SRS does not release — this remains speculative. When contacted, the Home Ministry declined to comment on the anomaly, leaving the mystery of the rising young mortality unresolved for now.
