October, 2023
According to the projections of the UN, India officially surpassed China as the most populous country in the world. By reaching 1.425.775.850 people in 2023, India broke a historical milestone in its development [UN, 2022; Ellis-Petersen, 2023]. For India, the status of the most populous country in the world brings both opportunities and challenges, the implications of which are discussed in the paper.
Notably, the calculations on India’s population are based on projections since the last census in India was conducted in 2011. Held once every decade, the census, originally scheduled for 2021 but delayed due to the pandemic and will likely take place only after India’s general elections in 2024. It should also be noted that the Indian census can underestimate its population, as the 2011 census missed 27.85 million people [Rukmini, 2020].
In general, although India’s population more than tripled from 450.55 million in the 1960s to 1.41 billion by 2020, the rate of population growth has slowed in recent years. In comparison to between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s, when the annual growth rate was more than 2.3%, which was slowed to less than 2% by 1993, since 2020 the growth rate has been further decreasing towards less than 1% [Worlddata.info, 2022]. The fertility rate currently is two children per woman, with around 1.7 children per woman in urban areas [Chandrashekhar, 2019].
In an effort to slow population growth, the Indian government has been implementing extensive family planning programmes since the early 1950s. In 1952, when the Indian population was around 350 million, the government adopted its first national family programme, which promoted having two children instead of close to six children per woman. In the 1970s, the Indian government implemented unpopular and aggressive measures to control the birth rate, including forced sterilisation of men [Jha, 2023]. Stable economic growth in the 1990s and a consequent improvement of social well-being through the alleviation of poverty, access to education, and empowerment of women led to a decrease in family size. At present, even Prime Minister Narendra Modi is promoting a small family as a gesture of patriotism [India Today, 2019].
Still, due to the federal system, states have different approaches to family planning programmes and, as a result, different consequences. For instance, in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, where state programmes were promoting socio-economic development and women’s empowerment, the fertility level was lower than in other parts of the country twenty years before the country reached the reduced fertility level. The other places, meanwhile, were campaigning against unpopular methods of mass sterilisation instead of supporting the advancement of human capital and, in particular, the empowerment of girls and women, which naturally leads to reducing the unplanned extension of families [UN, 2023].
The important difference in India’s population is that 47%, or 650 million people, are under 25 years old. Experts anticipate India’s youth population growth will continue until it reaches its population peak in the 2060s [Biswas, 2022]. The advantage of youth, which is known as a “demographic dividend”, might facilitate India’s growth faster than any other country can reach. Given the privilege of English proficiency and the progress of the IT and tech industries, Indian youth are competing not only at the national level but also globally. Provision of sufficient education, training, and employment are among the major tasks facing the Indian government to capitalise on the power of youth in the upcoming decades.
Education that gives a strong foundation for empowerment faces extensive inequalities in access, completion, and quality in India. As the Oxfam report highlights, schooling in India is divided based on class, linguistic background, gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and other parameters [Oxfam India, 2023]. There are also disparities in access to English-medium education, higher education, and upskilling courses. As a result, the literacy level among adults in urban India is 84.11% and 67.77% in rural areas [Livemint, 2023].
The great number of youths also requires a great number of jobs. Every year, over 10 million Indian youth are entering the workforce. By 2030, India has to create over 90 million new nonfarm jobs to employ 60 million new workers, in addition to the 30 million new jobs for those who have switched from farm to nonfarm work. In order to provide such indicators, the Indian economy has to grow over 8% annually despite its current 7% growth [McKinsey Global Institute, 2020]. Worth mentioning, the Asian Development Bank’s reports suggest that India in 2022 was among the best-performing economies in the world, while its priorities on digitalization, urbanisation, sustainability of its health, education, and social welfare allowed for robust domestic consumption and diversification of its dependence on global demand [ADB, 2023].
However, the level of unemployment in India is still significant. In 2022, the unemployment rate was around 7-8%, expanding from 5-6% in 2021 [Rajvanshi, 2023]. Given that a large portion of the population still lacks sufficient levels of education and skills, the issue of unemployment is among the major demographic challenges that India faces. Youth unemployment in 2022 was around 23%, while only one in four graduates were employed. Moreover, female participation in the labour market is among the lowest for emerging markets and stood at around 25% [Ellis-Petersen, 2022]. Despite the Indian government’s attempts to stimulate female participation in the labour market, it is still far from providing equality in the labour force.
Another challenge in India is growing urbanisation. India is still predominantly rural, with only over 33% of people living in cities. Economic growth and migration have contributed to urbanisation growth, which, according to UN projections, will lead to an increase in the urban population. As a result, by 2035, 675 million Indians might live in cities, with the growth of its ten largest cities being considerable. For instance, New Delhi, where at present 20 million people live, might grow by 2041 to up to 28 million. Similar growth is expected in major cities, such as Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata, and others [Ellis-Petersen, 2022]. The urban expansion puts pressure on essential infrastructure such as housing, transportation, water, sanitation, and energy infrastructure and demands better urban governance systems, including the expansion of smart city systems.
Despite the substantial reduction of poverty as well as the improvement of healthcare and education, India still has significant disparities in its social hierarchy. According to a report from Oxfam, the richest 10% of the Indian population owns over 72% of the total wealth, while the wealth of the lowest 50% of the population is equal to that of the top 9 billionaires in India. The total number of billionaires has boosted from 102 in 2020 to 166 in 2022. On the other hand, India has the largest number of poor populations – over 228.9 million people [Oxfam India, 2023]. In 2022, more than 813 million people were considered poor and received free rations under the state programme [The Print, 2022].
India also provides the largest number of overseas Indian communities. Standing at around 18 million people, the Indian diaspora is considered the largest diaspora worldwide in 2020 [UN, 2020b]. Indians abroad, while being an important actor in mobilising political, economic, social, and cultural gain for their motherland, have issues related to brain drain. It is suggested that 3 out of 4 Indians are attempting to move abroad, which is also a warning trend. Moreover, those who are moving abroad are mostly from middle-income families or higher. In terms of migration of wealth, studies have figured out that since 2014, over 23.000 millionaires have left India, while in 2019 alone, over 7.000 millionaires left India. Since 2015, around 900.000 people have abandoned their Indian citizenship [Krishnan, 2022].
Being among the fastest-growing major economies in the world, India aspires to become among the world’s top three economies in the upcoming decade [IBEF, 2022]. With a median age of 28.7 years, India’s demographic dividend might be a powerful engine for these aspirations. India at present has the largest portion of the working-age population (75%) that consists of over 1.1 billion people [Jha, 2023]. Hence, given that India’s economy is mostly driven by domestic demand in combination with its potential labour force, its growth levels might rocket very soon. If India can satisfy the essential needs of its population, such as education, jobs, housing, and the necessary infrastructure, its economy and population will reach a new milestone in their development.
References:
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Note: The views expressed in this blog are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the Institute’s editorial policy.