population explosion

India's population set to overtake that of China by 2024: UN

crowd-india-population Representational image | Reuters

By 2024, India's population is set to overtake that of China's, according to a new report by the United Nations. The report, titled, 'World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision', says China with 1.4 billion inhabitants, and India, with 1.3 billion, remain the two most populous countries, comprising 19 per cent and 18 per cent of the total global population.

In roughly seven years, or around 2024, the population of India is expected to surpass that of China, says the report.

According to experts at the Delhi-based Population Foundation of India (PFI), India's population, as per the 2011 Census, stands at 1.21 billion. Although the total fertility rate has come down to 2.2 from 2.7, for urban India it is 1.8. The population will keep rising because of the number of eligible couples in the reproductive age group (59 per cent of the population is below the age of 25 and 65 per cent below the age of 35), say experts at PFI.

This continued increase in population, it is said, is due to a phenomenon called the “demographic momentum”, and young couples are the reason behind this momentum. Going by the current estimates, the population will keep growing till it peaks at about 1.75 billion around 2060.

Currently, India's population is growing at a rate of 1.44 per cent per year, surpassing China’s rate of 0.7 per cent. This difference, say experts at the PFI, will result in India’s population size overtaking that of China's in less than 20 years.

The contrast in the growth rate in the country is evident in the fact that the eight Indian states, including Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Orissa are "responsible" for high growth rate of the country, even as the growth rate of six southern states (Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu) is lower than the growth rate of India.

However, Fuxian Yi, senior scientist, University of Wisconsin, Madison, insists that India's population had already surpassed that of China a few years ago. Yi, a critic of China's birth control policy, and author of the book, Big Country with an Empty Nest, told THE WEEK that the United Nations data was erroneous, and the real population of China in 2016 was only 1.28 billion (The current population of India, according to expert projections, is 1.31 billion).

Yi says data about the China's population in the UN reports (2010, 2017) has had discrepancies, and was “arbitrary”. The population data from the census in China had accurate figures which were ignored, he adds.

China, he says, inflated population figures because it received aid from the UNFPA, a mistake which India did not make.

“So India has a healthier and younger population structure, richer labor force, and will have more economic vitality. India's pension burden will be much lighter than in China.”

Experts at PFI, however,say India needs to stabilise population by reducing early marriages (before 18 years of age), empowering women, reducing poverty and adopting family planning methods for younger people. “The goal should be to stabilise population and not control population.”

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Topics : #population | #China

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