India: World’s most populous country

Gunin Borah

(The writer is a faculty of Geography in Biswanath College, Chariali. He can be reached at borah.gunin@gmail.com)

 India has overtaken China to become the most populous country in the world, as per the State of World Population Report, 2023 by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The population of India is now 2.9 million more than that of China.

The report indicates that India’s population is 1.4286 billion, while China’s stands at 1.4257 billion, making a difference of 2.9 million. It is the first time since 1950 when the UN started to collect population data that India’s population has overtaken China’s.

Experts believe that India’s demographic advantage, its young population, in a consumer driven economy will be a significant factor in driving the country’s development and will present an enormous opportunity for the country’s economic growth. Experts note that the country’s young working-age cohort will not just provide an abundant supply of labor but that rising domestic consumption should help the nation tide over any external shocks.

The report shows that 25% of India’s population falls within the age group of 0- 14, 18% in the age group of 10-19, 26% in the age group of 10-24, 68% in the age group of 15-64, and 7% above the age group of 65. Conversely, 17% of China’s population falls within the age group of 0-14, 12% in the age group of 10-19, 18% in the age group of 10-24, 69% in the age group of 15-64, and 14% above the age of 65. China is doing better than India in the context of life expectancy. For instance, the life expectancy for women is 76, while for India it is 74 and 71 respectively.

From 1960 to 2023 the population of India increased from 450.55 million to 1.43 billion people. This is a growth rate of 216.5 per cent in 63 years. The highest increase in India was recorded in 1974 with 2.36 per cent. The smallest increase in 2023 0.61 per cent. In the same period, the total population of all countries worldwide increased by 100.0 per cent. The average age of India rose by 2.63 years from 2012 to 2021. Around 35 per cent of the inhabitants live in the country’s larger cities. This growing trend of urbanization is increasing by 2.1 per cent annually.

India and China are the first and second top most populous countries in the world. These two countries lead the top of the most populous countries by a considerable margin. In terms of surface area, this is remarkable, as around 400 people live in one square kilometre. For comparison, slightly more than half as many live in one square kilometre in Germany, while not even one tenth as many live in a single square kilometre in the USA.

India is a country with extreme urbanization. Only a few people live in the desert and mountain region, while in the cities there are sometimes more than 25,000 inhabitants per square kilometre. In New York, the figure is just 10,000. About 60 per cent of the inhabitants live in a few large cities along the fertile parts of the country. With more than 40 cities with over a million inhabitants, India is the country with the largest metropolises after China.

At the beginning of the 18th century, India had just 137 million inhabitants. This number rose to about 255 million within 100 years and fluctuated by 20 per cent up and down during the 18th century. Only since the beginning of the 20th century has population growth increased dramatically, but has been losing some momentum for about 50 years.

Increasing industrialization and the accompanying improvement of healthcare and food production processes have an impact on population growth of India, as well as many countries over the last century. India also lacks a coordinated basic health care and pension system that is accessible to everyone. Therefore, having as many children as possible is often the only sensible retirement provision that a family can afford. This ‘contract between generations’ is a part of long culture in many predominantly poorer countries.

Population growth is the result of birth rate, the mortality rate, and the migration rate. For example, in the year 2021, the population in India increased by about 11,177,000 inhabitants. In the same year, the death rate was 9.4 per 1000 people and the birth rate was 16.4 per 1000 people. As a result, around 1,443,000 inhabitants have to be added by migration from other countries. Over the past 10 years, the average number of deaths per year was 9,586,910 in India. The number of births was 24,262,564 annually. The change of birth and death rate is the most deciding factor of growth of population in India.

There are several causes of high birth rate in India. Firstly, poverty is the main cause as the poor people consider children as assets who help them to supplement family income even at a tender age. Secondly, illiteracy among the rural people has been traditionally an important reason. Due to the high infant mortality rate, people were encouraged to have more children in the last century. Thirdly, attitudes towards having a male child resulted in a high birth rate. Fourthly, early marriage results in long child bearing capacity and causes high birth rate. Universality of marriage in India also supplements this reason.

The death rate in the past used to be very high due to epidemics and famine. Most of the epidemics have been controlled and mass destruction of human life does not take place due to epidemics. The spread of medical facilities in rural areas has reduced the occurrence of epidemics and communicable diseases like cholera, and smallpox. Easy availability of life saving drugs has saved life of millions of people. The spread of institutional delivery, female education, urbanization etc. have resulted in a decline of death rate.

Poverty is another reason for the increased population in our country. Many poor parents produce more children not because they don’t have the knowledge about family planning, but because they require children to assist them in earning their livelihood. It is clear from the facts that there is an unending number of child laborers in our country. If poor families stop the children from working, their family income tends to fall way short of meeting their basic needs.

Technological revolution and population explosion occur at the same time. There have been three major technological revolutions. They are the tool making revolution, the agricultural revolution, and industrial revolution. Agricultural advancement in the 20th century has allowed humans to increase food production using fertilizer, herbicides, and pesticides. This allowed humans with more access to food that led to population explosion.

Many people prefer to move to developing countries like the US, UK, Canada, Australia, where the best facilities are available in terms of medical, education, security, and employment. The result is that those people settle over there, eventually making those places overcrowded. If the number of people who are leaving the country is less than the number of people who enter, it usually leads to more demands for food, clothes, energy and homes.

Population of India, which at the turn of the 20th century was only around 238.4 million, increased by more than five times in a period of 110 years to reach 1210 million in 2011. Population of India has increased by 3.50 times since Independence. With the current trend of population, it is now estimated that by 2027, India will most likely overtake China to become the most populous country in the world with 1.47 billion people. And by 2030, India will cross the 1.5 billion milestone.