India is to surpass China as the most populous country in 2023, at least four years earlier than last forecast. Far from being a distinction to be celebrated, it will be a diadem of thorns that India will be wearing while much of the developed world will be witnessing a decline in population. From 1.21 billion in 2011, according to the last census, the Indian population is projected to grow to 1.66 billion by 2050. There would be nearly 1.42 bn residents in India around the time it overtakes China and the sheer enormity of that number is sufficient to send shivers down the spine of those as it must be seen as the biggest challenge to even economic growth.
The eight billion-mark for the world is fast approaching with a November 15 date projected for that milestone now. Not even the slowing rate of population growth does anything to lessen the task of meeting the needs of humans in the face of finite planetary resources that are dwindling rapidly thanks to the consumption levels of today’s people. China may have used its demographic dividend smartly in the second half of the 20th century but such a dividend has eluded us, staying mostly on paper rather than spurring a beneficial value-generation curve.
The greying of the population is another burden that Indian society would have to bear as life expectancy stands at a healthy 72+ even if a slight dip may have been caused by the pandemic. Rising life expectancy and low levels of fertility and birth rates may see a rise globally in the 65+ population from the current 10 per cent to 16 per cent by 2050. The education needs of the youngest segment of the population and the healthcare requirements of the aged will spiral upwards, which simply means that not only financial resources have to be found to sustain the population levels.
Any projection of job growth would have to account for the expanding numbers and this is where a sense of helplessness creeps in given the changing profile of jobs from traditional farming and manufacturing to new age employment in a digitally-driven world that would have to rise exponentially to cater to future numbers of the ages 24-65 workforce. While ensuring the economic participation of a working age population running into hundreds of millions of people would be a huge challenge, there is little place for any propagandist majoritarian fears that leaders of a particular political party stoke against people of a particular group.
As education, economic want and awareness of the finite quality of resources spread, population will only decline in the modern age and imbalances are never likely to be so great as to cause heartburn. Notwithstanding the numbers, there is little need for enforced birth control measures of any kind as India’s population count is expected to plateau before declining in this century itself. What the explosion towards becoming the world’s most populous nation entails is far better planning of the economy, which would have to cater to a population in excess of 1.5 bn. Are we up to the challenge?
