India's population to overtake China, with 3m more people by mid-2023, says UN
People crowd on platforms as they wait for their train at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) railway station Mumbai on Wednesday. AFP
The demographic data from the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) “State of World Population Report, 2023” estimates India’s population at 1,428.6 million or 1.4286 billion against 1.4257 billion for China.
The United States is a distant third, with an estimated population of 340 million as of the end of June, the data showed in a report that reflects information available until February.
Population experts using previous data from the UN have projected India's population would surpass China's this month, but the global body's latest report did not specify a date.
UN population officials have said it was not possible to pinpoint a date because of uncertainty about the data from India and China, as India's last census was held in 2011 and the next, due in 2021, was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although both nations will account for more than a third of the estimated global population of 8.045 billion, population growth in both has been slowing, albeit much faster in China than India.
Last year, China's population fell for the first time in six decades, a historic turn expected to usher in a long period of decline in citizen numbers, with profound implications for its economy and the world.
"Population is important but talents are also important...China has taken active measures to respond to population aging," Wang told reporters on Wednesday.
"As Premier Li Qiang pointed out, our population dividend has not disappeared. Our talent dividend is booming, and the impetus for development is strong," she said.
‘POPULATION ANXIETY’
There was no official reaction from India to the data, with a federal minister saying it was not discussed at a cabinet meeting held on Wednesday.
India's annual population growth has averaged 1.2% since 2011, down from 1.7% in the previous decade, government data shows.
A public survey by UNFPA for the 2023 report found the most commonly held opinion in India, as well as in Brazil, Egypt and Nigeria, was that the population in each country "was too large and fertility rates were too high," the report said.
"The Indian survey findings suggest that population anxieties have seeped into large portions of the general public," Andrea Wojnar, the agency's India representative, said in a statement.
"Yet population numbers should not trigger anxiety or create alarm. Instead, they should be seen as a symbol of progress, development, and aspirations if individual rights and choices are being upheld."
India had done many things right in tackling population growth, said Poonam Muttreja, an official of the voluntary group Population Foundation of India.
"At the same time, we need to make sure that girls and women are not pushed into early marriages and pregnancies, which limit their aspirations," she said in a statement.
China has had the world's largest population since at least 1950, the year the UN began issuing population data. Both China and India have more than 1.4 billion people, and combined they make up more than a third of the world’s 8 billion people.
Not long ago, India wasn’t expected to become the most populous until later this decade. But the timing has been sped up by a drop in China’s fertility rate, with families having fewer children.
India, by contrast, has a much younger population, a higher fertility rate, and has seen a decrease in infant mortality over the last three decades. Still, the country’s fertility rate has been steadily falling, from over five births per woman in 1960 to just over two in 2020, according to World Bank data.
The country’s population has more than quadrupled since gaining independence 76 years ago. As India looks set to become the world's largest country, it is grappling with the growing threat of climate change, deep inequalities between its urban and rural populations, economic disparities between its men and women, and a widening religious divide.
In a survey of 1,007 Indians conducted by the UN in conjuction with the report, 63% of respondents said economic issues were their top concern when thinking about population change, followed by worries about the environment, health and human rights.
"The Indian survey findings suggest that population anxieties have seeped into large portions of the general public. Yet, population numbers should not trigger anxiety or create alarm,” Andrea Wojnar, the United Nations Population Fund’s representative for India, said in a statement. She added that they should be seen as a symbol of progress and development "if individual rights and choices are being upheld.”
Reuters / AP
