India becomes the world’s most populous nation with 142.86 cr people surpassing China: UN

According to UN estimates, India's population is 142.86 cr against China's 142.57 cr

April 20, 2023

India’s population expected to rise for next three decades before starting to decline: UN projections

Overtaking China, now India has become the world’s most populous country according to the data released by the United Nations. UN estimates show India’s population is 142.86 crores against China’s 142.57 crores.

This is the first time that India has topped the UN list of most populous countries since it started collecting population data in 1950.

While India’s population at 1.4 billion has surpassed that of China, the “latest big news” is that the population growth is below the replacement fertility rate in India and it has a “window of opportunity“, according to Rachel Snow, the lead demographer of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

The continued trajectory for India is that while the young population entering the reproductive phase will boost overall fertility, “given the fertility pattern already evident, we can start to anticipate the decline, the plateauing, and decline”, she said.

The replacement fertility rate is the average number of children a woman must have to keep the population steady and it is considered to be 2.1 children per woman. The replacement fertility rate for India is 2, with wide variations within the country — between 1.6 for Punjab and West Bengal, and 3 for Bihar among the large states, according to Indian government data.

India’s once-in-a-decade census was due to be held in 2021 but was delayed due to the Coronavirus pandemic. India has no recent official data on how many people it has because it has not conducted a census since 2011.

Nearly 1/4th of India’s population is under the age of 14, according to the UN data. 68 percent of the population is in the 15 to 64 age group, while 7 percent is above 65.

Estimates by different agencies have suggested that India’s population is expected to keep rising for nearly three decades before it peaks at 165 crores and then would start declining.

The new UN report also estimated that the global population would have hit 8.045 billion by mid-2023.

[With Inputs from IANS]

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