India projected to surpass China as world’s most populous country during 2023: United Nations report

The global population will reach 8 billion on November 15, 2022, more than three times the population of 2.5 billion in 1950.

The findings come in the backdrop of a decrease in fertility rates across the globe. The UN report finds that in 2020, for the first time since 1950, the rate of population growth fell below 1 per cent per year and it is projected to continue to slow in the next few decades and through the end of this century.

The population of China was 1,144 million in 1990 compared with India’s at 861 million then.

The UN projections say that by 2050, India’s population will reach 1,668 million, far exceeding China’s declining population at 1,317 million. The global population by 2050 would have touched 9.7 billion.

The world’s two most populous regions in 2022 were Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, with 2.3 billion people, representing 29 per cent of the global population, and Central and Southern Asia, with 2.1 billion (26 per cent). China and India accounted for the largest populations in these regions, with more than 1.4 billion each in 2022, says the report. Central and Southern Asia is expected to become the most populous region in the world by 2037.

The latest UN projections suggest that the global population could grow to around 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and 10.4 billion in 2100.

In India, where National Family Health Survey 5 released last year found that India attained a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 2.0 for the first time, less than the replacement level of 2.1, and falling from a TFR of 2.2 in NFHS 4. Increased use of contraceptive methods, spacing of pregnancies, access to health care and an impetus provided to family planning contributed to the decrease, including increasing wealth and education.

While fertility rates have been declining, so have mortality rates with increased access to healthcare and advances in medicine. Worldwide, persons aged 65 years or over, outnumbered children under 5 years for the first time in 2018. This reduction of premature mortality for successive generations, reflected in increased levels of life expectancy at birth, has been a driver of population growth, the UN has said.

Globally, life expectancy reached 72.8 years in 2019, an increase of almost 9 years since 1990. Further reductions in mortality are projected to result in an average longevity of around 77.2 years globally in 2050 and the share of the global population aged 65 years or above is projected to rise from 10 per cent in 2022 to 16 per cent in 2050. By 2050, the number of persons 65 years and above are expected to be more than double that of 5-year-olds and the same as 12-year-olds.

“Following a drop in mortality, population growth continues so long as fertility remains at high levels. When fertility begins to fall, the annual rate of growth starts to drop,” says the report.

“These numbers are not drastically different from the UN’s earlier projections. The 2019 World Population Prospects report had said that India would overtake China by 2027. So, we knew that India was going to overtake China in a matter of a few years. If we look at it over the last 50 years, India’s growth rate stood at 2.3 per cent in 1972, which has dropped down to less than 1 per cent now. In this period, the number of children each Indian woman has during her lifetime has come down from about 5.4 to less than 2.1 now. This means that we have attained the Replacement Fertility Rate, at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next. Usage of modern contraceptives is rising across the country and the desired fertility rate for all communities in India is less 2, according to the latest National Family Health Survey data,” says Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director, Population Foundation of India.

In 2021, the average fertility of the world’s population stood at 2.3 births per woman, having fallen from about 5 births per woman in 1950. Global fertility is projected to decline further to 2.1 births per woman by 2050.

The population growth in South Asia will begin to decline before 2100.

Increasing rates of migration also contribute to changing population patterns across countries. South Asia clocks some of the highest emigration trends, according to the report with India seeing an estimated net outflow of 3.5 million between 2010 and 2021. Pakistan has the highest net flow of migrants of 16.5 million during the same period.

More than half of the projected increase in global population up to 2050 will be concentrated in just eight countries – the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and the United Republic of Tanzania. Countries of sub-Saharan Africa are expected to continue growing through 2100 and to contribute more than half of the global population increase anticipated through 2050.

Despite the continuing decline in the average number of births per woman, the total annual number of births has remained stable at around 140 million since the late 1980s “due to the youthful age distribution of the global population”. In 2021, 134 million babies were born worldwide. In the future, the number of newborns is expected to slightly increase to reach 138 million annually between 2040 and 2045, despite the continuous decline in the average number of births per woman. In 2021, most births worldwide occurred in the two most populous regions — Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

“About 9.4 per cent of Indian women have an unmet need for contraception, which means that approximately 22 million women want to stop or delay childbearing but do not have access to a method of contraception. Our focus should be on providing women of all communities’ access to family planning services. We should also capitalize on our large young population — about 30 per cent is aged between 10 and 24. The government needs to play a pivotal role andinvest in education, health and creating economic opportunities for young people, which would help us harness what economists call demographic dividend,” says Muttreja.