UGC NET Questions (Paper – 1)

Urbanisation refers to both the growth of cities and the rising share of people who live in them. It is driven by rural to urban migration and natural increase within urban areas. Since the stem focuses on the proportion of population residing in towns and cities,the correct term is urbanisation. Urbanisation thus directly captures the demographic shift described.

Option A:
Industrialisation is the process of expanding manufacturing and factory based production. Although it often accompanies urbanisation,it is primarily an economic structural change rather than a demographic measure. Therefore it does not exactly match the definition in the question.

Option B:
Urbanisation explicitly denotes the concentration of population in urban settlements. It is usually expressed as a percentage of total population living in urban areas. That is why it accurately completes the sentence given in the stem.

Option C:
Migration is the movement of people from one place to another,which can be rural to urban,urban to rural or between regions and countries. The stem is not about movement alone but about the resulting proportion of the population residing in urban areas,so migration is too broad and imprecise here.

Option D:
Metropolisation refers to the development of very large metropolitan regions,often through merging of cities and surrounding towns. It is a specific urban pattern and not the general demographic process of rising urban share described in the question.