India will become the first country in the world in terms of population 6 years earlier than previously thought, according to a report by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Now China and India are home to 1.38 and 1.31 billion people, respectively. The population of the two countries will reach 1.4 billion by 2022. Until the beginning of the 30s, i.e. For about a decade, India's population will continue to grow, while China's will stabilize. This means that already in 2023-25, India will become the most populous country on our planet. Its population is expected to reach 1.5 billion by 2030 and 1.7 billion by 2050.
Ten years ago, the world's population increased by 1.24% annually. Now the growth rate has slowed to 1.18% or approximately 83 million people a year. In general, the growth rate, which peaked in the 1960s, has been steadily declining since the 1970s.
As for the population of the entire planet as a whole, now it is 7.3 billion people. According to the new forecast, it will grow to 9.7 billion by the middle of the century. The lion's share of the increase will come from countries with high birth rates, located mainly in Africa, and populous countries.
More than half of the world's population growth in 2015-50 will be provided by 9 countries: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, USA, Indonesia and Uganda.
“Continued population growth until 2050 is almost inevitable even if the decline in fertility accelerates,” the UN forecast says. “With an 80 percent probability, it can be predicted that the world's population will reach 8.4-8.6 billion people by 2030; 9.4-10 billion by 2050 and 10-12.5 billion by 2100.”
It is expected that by the middle of the century the population of six countries: China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and the United States will exceed 300 million people. By this time, Nigeria will overtake the United States in terms of population and become the third most populous country on the planet.
If current fertility trends continue, Africa, home to 27 of the world's 48 least developed countries, will be the only continent with significant population growth after 2050. The share of the population of the Black Continent in the total population of the planet will reach 25% by 2050, and 39% by 2100. The share of Asia will decrease to 54% by the middle of the century, and to 44% by the end.
Of the continents, only Europe is expected to see a steady decline in population. The authors of the report expect that it will decrease from 738 million people now to 646 in 2100.
Along with the population, life expectancy is also steadily increasing: from 67 years in 2000-5 to 70 in 2010-15. This trend will continue. Life expectancy will reach 77 years by 2045-50 and 83 by 2095-2100. By the end of the century, the authors of the study predict, African life expectancy will increase by almost 19 years, to about 60 years. This forecast will come true if the fight against AIDS and other diseases continues on the Black Continent.
Decreasing birth rates and increasing life expectancy will further increase the number of older people. By 2030, according to the forecast, it will grow to 1.4 billion people, by 2050 - up to 2.1, and by the end of the century - up to 3.2 billion.
In Europe, by the middle of the century, one in three will be over 60 years old - 34%. Now older Europeans - a quarter (24%).
The Berlin Institute for Population and Development published a comprehensive report in German on the state of demography in Russia. The title - "The Disappearing World Power" - contains the main conclusion. Experts note that back in 1960, Russia (excluding other republics of the USSR) ranked fourth in the world in terms of population. In 2010, it dropped to ninth, behind Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria. And by the middle of the 21st century, our country, according to German demographers, will lose another 25 million people, and will cease to be among the ten most populated countries in the world.
However, not only Russia is having a hard time, an unenviable fate awaits other countries as well. Experts from the SKOLKOVO Institute for Emerging Market Research (SIEMS), having compared the situation in the BRIC countries, came to the conclusion that in the next 20 years, only India has a chance to rise economically due to a favorable demographic situation.
Thomas Malthus knew that the prosperity of a country is directly related to demography. In 1798, he published Essay on the Principle of Population (An Essay on the Law of Population), where he outlined the apocalyptic theory that uncontrolled population growth should eventually lead to famine on Earth. This idea has been alternately supported and refuted for two hundred years. Finally, in the "noughties" of the 21st century, economists recognized that Malthus was right - in the sense that the population size still matters for the prosperity of the state.
It's about population structure. If young people predominate among citizens, the country has a unique chance to convert “demographic dividends” into economic growth. Unique because fertility is a cyclical thing. In the history of every nation, the moments when the majority of the population is of working age are one or two and counted. And if the moment (it is called the demographic transition) is missed, the large working-age generation becomes old, becomes a huge collective dependent, and pulls the economy to the bottom.
In the 20th century, there were many examples when the demographic transition turned the run-down countries into the engines of the world economy. Thus, according to SIEMS experts, the Japanese “economic miracle” after 1945 is largely due to a decrease in the relative number of dependents (adults who would have become old people died in the war, and a large pre-war generation took their place).
The same can be said about the impressive economic growth of the four "Asian tigers" - South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. In 1950, women in these countries had six children each. Today, less than two. As a result, from 1965 to 1990, the working-age population of Tigers grew 4 times faster than the number of young and old dependents.
An example from the same series is Ireland. In 1979, contraception was legalized there, which immediately brought down the birth rate - from 22 babies per 1,000 population in 1980 to 13 babies per 1,000 in 1994. The relative number of dependents (we recall that these are not only pensioners, but also children) has sharply decreased because of this. As a result, thanks to reforms aimed at creating a free market, Ireland during this period became the country with the highest economic growth rates in Europe.
While we are talking about countries that did not miss their chance to use the demographic shift (“shift”, note, some of them were artificially created).
Now let's turn to the BRIC countries. In 2008, these economies accounted for a quarter of global GDP and 42% of the world's population. SIEMS experts tried to answer which of the four countries have a chance to break through on the wave of "demographic shift" into a bright economic future.
So, great and mighty China. SIEMS rightly believes that the Chinese have benefited enormously from their favorable demographic situation over the past 30 years. In the late 1970s, when reforms aimed at creating a free market began in the country, dependents (old and young) made up 70% of the total population. By 2009, this figure had fallen to 39%. And unlike Brazil, China was able to take advantage of the “shift” – between 1980 and 2008, per capita income rose from $250 to $6,020.
The main reason for this breakthrough is a sharp drop in the birth rate. In 1979, the Chinese authorities allowed each family to have only one child (usually 3-6 children). According to the results of 2007, such a policy has reduced the birth rate by 400 million people over the past 30 years. Reducing the number of dependents ideally contributed to economic growth.
China is still a relatively young country today (the average age of the population is 34 years). 70% of Chinese people are between the ages of 16 and 64. The workforce is 800 million, double that of the United States. Despite a birth rate of less than two, China's population continues to grow and will peak at 1.46 billion around 2032.
But from now on, according to SIEMS experts, the good times for China will end. Already today, China's population is aging faster than any other country in the world. By 2050, 32% of Chinese people are expected to be over 60 years old. In absolute terms, this is 459 million pensioners. Starting around 2017, the working-age population of China will decline, and by 2050 it will decrease by 115 million - this is almost the population of all of today's Russia.
According to Jonathan Anderson of UBS Bank, this means that China has almost exhausted its demographic resources. For years, a growing working-age population provided Chinese manufacturers with a source of cheap labor. Cheap labor played a decisive role in the creation of China's export machine. But a couple more decades - and everything will be different.
Experts argue only about one thing: whether China will be able to get rich before the population ages. China's aging pattern is similar to that of Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. The only difference is that in China this happens when the country is still poor. Perhaps that is why the Chinese will not be able to get rich.
But India, the other leading BRIC country, is yet to take advantage of the demographic shift. India now has a population of approximately 1.2 billion, 175 million fewer than China's. But it is growing twice as fast, as a result, India will overtake China in terms of population by about 2031. Moreover, population growth in India will continue until 2050, when it will reach 1.66 billion (in China - 1.42 billion). That is, modern India is like China of the 1970s, at the start of reforms.
So, in the "zero" in India, the birth rate fell from 3.1 to 2.7 children per family, as a result, the number of dependents decreased from 61% to 55% of the total number of Indians. Moreover, the best demographic times for India are ahead. One third of India's population today are children under 14, half of the population is under 24, and only 5% is over 65. This means that by 2025 the number of dependents among Indians will decrease to 48% (37% young people, 11% - the elderly), and the working-age population will increase by 230 million people (now it is a considerable 750 million).
By the way, to reduce the birth rate in India, there is a government program of voluntary male sterilization. For participation in it, a reward is due - a car, a motorcycle, a TV and a blender or a bicycle. Such a difference in incentive gifts is due to the different solvency of the departments. In total, in India in 2010, about 5 million male sterilizations and about 1 million females were performed. In total, from the 1960s to the present day, about 10% of men have been sterilized in this country.
With such a serious approach to reducing the birth rate, India may well soar upwards - unless, of course, its authorities break firewood in the economy, otherwise India will repeat the fate of Brazil.
Another BRIC country, Brazil, is a classic example of lost demographic opportunities. The number of dependents in Brazil has been steadily declining over the past 40 years, from 85% in 1970 to 49% in 2009. However, this did not lead to an acceleration of the economy. After the explosive short growth in the 1960s-1970s, the Brazilian economy began to chronically lag behind. While the country still has a relatively young population (average age 27.5) and a record low of 48% by 2020, Brazil has a low savings and investment rate for a developing country, at just 18% of GDP (by comparison, in China - 40%).
Against this background, Russia looks pale. Although Russian history is generally characterized by periods of significant population decline (World War I and Civil Wars, collectivization and repression, the Second World War), the current decline, according to SIEMS experts, is especially sharp, prolonged and almost irreversible. According to forecasts, by 2050, only 109 million of the current 140 million people will remain in Russia. In addition, people from the generation of the 1990s, when the birth rate fell catastrophically, will replenish the labor force, while the generation born at the peak of fertility will retire.
As in China, the period of declining dependency numbers is coming to an end in Russia. It reached a minimum level - 39% - in 2010, and now it is increasing, and this process will continue for another 40 years. As a result, by the middle of the century the number of dependents will be critical 70%. Russia's working-age population is projected to fall by 15 million between 2010 and 2025, and then another 20 million by mid-century.
The only comforting news for Russia in the context of the other BRIC countries is that we have the highest starting GDP per capita ($15,600, 50% higher and 2.5 times more than China). But who and how will manage this money in the future is a huge philosophical question.
There is one significant demographic characteristic common to all BRIC countries. And it is not positive. The BRIC countries will face the problem of an aging population before they enter the ranks of rich countries. While the industrial countries had enough time to accumulate wealth and provide a high level of income to the population before the onset of the aging process, in the BRIC countries the process of population aging will begin much earlier, not allowing the population of these countries to provide a high level of income. For example, China's population aging process has characteristics similar to those of Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan today. The essential difference is that in China this process is taking place at a time when the country as a whole is still relatively poor. According to the World Bank, China's average annual per capita income is about $6,000 (2008, purchasing power parity). In the United States in 1990, when the median age of the population was the same as China's today, that average per capita income was four times China's current figure, at $23,000.
Today, India and China occupy the leading positions in the world in terms of population. And these numbers are growing every year. China is in first place. The current population is 1,394,943,000 people.
In India, today the population is 1,357,669,000 people. But according to UN experts, these figures will change in 8-10 years. India will take the first place in terms of population, thereby overtaking the Celestial Empire.
Settlement in the Middle Kingdom
According to the United Nations Department of Statistics, the total area of China is 9,598,089 square kilometers. A number of geographical features of the country do not allow the Chinese to settle evenly. There are sparsely populated areas, and there are regions where there are more than several thousand people per square kilometer of population. What is the reason for this? In the first place - the geographical location and climatic conditions. The Chinese settle where there is fertile land and water. For this reason, the western and northern parts of the territory are sparsely populated. The Gobi Desert, Takla Makan and Tibet do not attract the Chinese. These provinces occupy more than 50% of China's territory, and are only 6% populated. Fertile areas are located along the two main rivers of China, the Zhujiang and Yangtze, as well as the North China Plain. Here the climate is mild, conducive to the active development of agriculture, there is water, and therefore there is no threat of drought. The second reason is the uneven economic development of the regions of the PRC. The Chinese try to settle in large cities. Thus, more than 24 million inhabitants live in the port city of Shanghai.
More than 21 million Chinese live in Beijing, the capital of China. This is due to the fact that it is easier for city dwellers to find work in such large metropolitan areas. Large and densely populated cities in China also include the cities of Harbin, Tianjin and Guangzhou. Over the past century, China's population has increased despite the government's "One Family, One Child" program. Moreover, this program has led to the fact that the people of the Celestial Empire are rapidly aging. Also, there was a gender bias. This is due to the fact that in the early stages of pregnancy, Chinese women, having learned about the sex of the child (girl) on ultrasound, had abortions. Today there are 120 men for every 100 women. According to forecasts, in 2019 the number of the Celestial Empire will increase by 7,230,686 people, and at the end of the year it will be 1,408,526,449 people. The population growth rate will be 19,810 people per day.
Indian population density
The rapid growth of the Indian population forced the government to take a number of measures. So India was one of the first to adopt a birth control program. The program has been operating since 1951. Married couples were offered a monetary reward for voluntary sterilization. But the program did not lead to the expected results, and it was decided in 1976 that sterilization should be carried out forcibly if there were more than two children in the family. Today, the average Indian family has an average of four children. Early marriages also contributed to the growth of the Indian population. It was decided to increase the age at which young people could marry from 18 (girls) and 23 (boys) years. The gender bias towards the male population occurred for the same reason as in China, because of abortion. The number of men exceeds the number of women by several times. The Indian population, like the population of China, tends to major cities such as Delhi. More than 23 million inhabitants live in the capital today, this is with an area of 1,484 km². By 2030, this number could rise. The population of Delhi will reach the population of the largest city in the world, the Japanese city of Tokyo. The city of Mumbai is not far behind the capital of India. More than 22 million people live in it.
In Kolkata, this figure is over 13 million. Madras was hospitably received by 6 million Indians, and Bombay became home to more than 15 million Indian residents. But the demographic situation in India is strikingly different from that in China. The reason is the socio-economic characteristics of the two countries. The population policy of the Indian government has failed. This was influenced by the monstrous illiteracy of the population, early marriages and strict observance of many religious dogmas. Today, China still ranks first in terms of population. But the Celestial Empire is rapidly developing economically, the standard of living of the Chinese is rising. And the increase in numbers is small, but decreasing. India today does not control population growth, and it is increasing every year. In 2013, the figure was 1,271,544,257 people. Already in 2016, this figure increased to 1,336,191,444 people. The population density per square meter in India today is 2.5 times higher than in China. And this difference will only grow. On average, there are about 140 people per one "Chinese" square meter, and more than 360 people per one "Indian" square meter. To be fair, India ranks 18th in terms of population density. And many states have surpassed it in this indicator. But at the same time, the density of India is still very high. The capital Delhi and the Indian city of Mumbai are among the ten most populous cities in the world.
Forecasts
In the coming years, the number of residents of India and China will increase. Their population will be 40% of the population of the entire planet. Which of the two countries will come first? Today's data suggests that India is inferior to China in terms of numbers and is only in second place. But in April 2017, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison Y. Fuxian conducted research. During which, it was found out that India still leads in terms of the number of inhabitants. Mistakes were made in counting Chinese residents. As it turned out, there are 90 million fewer inhabitants in China. But the professor's research has not yet been taken into account. It is officially recognized that China is the leader in terms of the number of inhabitants and takes the first position in the table. It is only clear that the population of India is steadily growing. Nevertheless, experts note that there is a positive trend. To date, population growth has slightly decreased. If this continues to happen, then in general, in the future, the population growth of India will decrease.
And maybe even by the end of the 21st century, a reverse trend will occur, and frightening forecasts that the country's population will exceed the threshold of 2 billion people will not come true. And what about the great and mighty China? SIEMS specialists believe that China has practically exhausted its demographic resources. By 2050, 32% of the Chinese will be over 60 years old. In real numbers, this is 459 million pensioners. Since 2017, the number of able-bodied Chinese has been declining. And by 2050 it will reach 115 million people. And this means that China will no longer be able to rely on cheap labor, due to which the development of the Chinese economy takes place. Cheap labor played a decisive role in creating China's exports, but a couple more decades, and the situation will change for the worse. There is only hope that China will have time to get rich before the population of the country becomes disabled. Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea are aging in the same way. But there is a main difference from them, China is still poor and it is unlikely that it will be able to get rich.
The population of India for 2019 is 1,372,771,891 people(actual as of February 27, 2019) is the second most populated country in the world after China with its 1.41 billion citizens. That is, Hindus make up 17.85% of the world's population, although the country's territory occupies only about 2.4% of the land. Despite the fact that the palm belongs to China, India seems to be set to catch up with it in terms of the number of inhabitants by 2030. With the current annual growth rate of 1.2%, the country's population is projected to reach over 1.53 billion by that date.
Ethnic composition
More than 2 thousand different ethnic groups live in the country. Each province is characterized by a peculiar combination of ethnic traditions and culture of the nationalities living there. Throughout Indian history, ethnic relationships have been both constructive (with mutual cultural influence) and destructive (with discrimination and ethnic violence).
For example, even today, many northeast Indians face discrimination - they are denied housing when traveling to urban areas for study or work and are subjected to racial slurs.
In 2012, in an attempt to prevent discrimination, the Indian government issued a call to its states and union territories to arrest anyone who commits acts of violence against residents of the northeast under the Scheduled Tribes and Castes Act. A person found guilty under this law faces 5 years in prison.
Population structure
Over 50% of Indians are under the age of 25, and over 65% are under 35. About 72.2% live in 638,000 villages, and 27.8% live in 5,480 cities and metropolitan areas.
India has 35 cities and urban agglomerations with a population of over 1 million people.
The birth rate is 22.22 children/1,000 people (in 2009) and the death rate is 6.4 deaths/1,000 people. The scale of annual population growth in India is comparable to the total population of Australia or Sri Lanka. More Hindus are born every year than any other nation in the world, and the population of some states is equal to the total population of many countries.
For example, the number of inhabitants of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh is almost equal to the population of Brazil (according to the 2001 census, it was 190 million people, with a growth rate of 16.16%). The population of the second largest state of Maharashtra, with a growth rate of 9.42%, is equal to the population of Mexico. Bihar, with 8.07%, is the third largest and has a larger population than Germany.
Kerala with 1,058 women per 1,000 men and Pondicherry (1,001/1,000) are the only states with a female-dominated population. Haryana has the lowest rate with a ratio of 861 women to 1,000 men.
India has the largest illiterate population in the world. The literacy rate in the country according to the 2011 census was 74.04%.
Decreasing birth rate policy
The reasons for India's rapid population growth are poverty, illiteracy, a high birth rate, a rapid decline in mortality, and immigration from Bangladesh and Nepal. The government, alarmed by its rapidly expanding population, is taking measures to slow down the rate of growth. In fact, India, by launching the National Planned Parenthood Program in 1952, became the first country in the world to implement a population policy. The program has produced some notable results, significantly reducing the birth rate in the country.
Between 1965 and 2009, contraceptive use in the country tripled.
Although the efforts yielded positive results, however, they did not reach the final goal, and the country's population has almost tripled since independence from Britain in 1947. While India has squandered almost all of its power to control population growth, the "One Child Policy in China" launched in 1978 has had a more significant impact: by some estimates, up to 400 million births were averted between 1979 and 2010. .