The UN Population Fund’s projection that India could overtake China as the world’s most populous country in the next two months — the country’s population is estimated to touch 142.86 crore by the middle of the year, a little more than China’s 142.57 crore — should not trigger anxieties or cause alarm. Demographers today use a variety of metrics — fertility and replacement rates, age and region-wise data — to arrive at a far more layered understanding of population dynamics compared to 70 years ago when the country launched its first family planning programme. The UN report confirms a trend underlined in successive National Family Health Surveys and other government studies — the rate of population growth has slowed down appreciably in the past 10 years. India’s total fertility rate — number of children per woman — came down to 2 in 2020-2021 from about 3.4 in the early Nineties. The UN Population Fund reckons that a TFR of 2.1 is necessary for a country to attain population stability. The country is on course to achieve this if it maintains this rate in the next few years.
A nuanced reading of demographics, however, does not always find traction, including in sections of the political class. As the UN report points out, “population anxieties have seeped into large portions of the general public”. Except for a lapse into forced sterilisation during the Emergency, governments in India have, by and large, relied on persuasion and education. In recent years, however, coercive methods — making people with more than two children ineligible for government jobs, for instance — have become a part of the family planning playbook of some states. Such tendencies must be curbed. The UN report rightly points out that, “Global experience shows family planning targets can lead to… coercion of women”. In parts of the country where the TFR is above the national average — Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Meghalaya — governments must follow the time-tested methods of empowering women and investing in their education and strengthening healthcare facilities.
Two-thirds of India’s total population is between the ages of 15 and 64. Education, skill development and creating opportunities, especially for the youth of disadvantaged sections and women, will hold the key to the country using the demographic dividend to its advantage in the next 20 years. An area of concern is the low participation of women in the labour force. World Bank data shows that female labour participation in India plunged from 32 per cent in 2005 to 19 per cent in 2021. This is a major reason for the country being slow to take advantage of its large working-age population as compared to countries such as South Korea. In taking advantage of opportunities and addressing challenges, there are bound to be debates, conflicts of opinion, and dissent. The world’s most populous country will need to use and strengthen its democratic institutions to find the way forward.
