The UN has set the announcement for mid-April. But independent demographic institutes, such as the World Population Review, ensure that the overrun has already occurred in 2022. India is now the most populous country on the planet and will remain so at least until the end of the century, with 1.417 billion inhabitants, against 1.412 billion for China . The next on the podium of world demography, the United States with 338 million individuals, or Indonesia (275 million) and Pakistan (234 million) are barely larger than the state of Bihar, in the northern India, the most populous in the country.
The subcontinent has more inhabitants than the whole of Europe or the Americas. It looks like a giant, even if the exact size of its population is not precisely known, because the Indian government, contrary to tradition for more than a century, has not carried out a decennial census since 2011 – officially in due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The opposition suspects the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, of postponing this census, essential for the adjustment of public policies and expenditure, after the general elections scheduled for spring 2024, in order to avoid the dissemination of statistics which would bring to light the the real state of the country in terms of poverty, castes, literacy and employment.
India’s population has grown by more than 1 billion people since independence in 1947 and will continue to grow until 2060, to reach 1.7 billion, even as the country began its demographic transition in the 1980s. Its synthetic fertility index (2 children per woman) is now slightly below the replacement level (2.1 children per woman). The evolution is very slow because India has not resorted, unlike China, to a coercive policy. The country would not have supported it, after the trauma of the campaign of forced sterilization imposed by Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay during the state of emergency in 1976. In camps, 8 million men had then undergone vasectomies.
It is an extremely young, masculine and unequal country which takes over from China at the head of the world population: 40% of the population is under 25, the median age in India is 28, against 38 years in the United States and 39 years in China. Adults aged 65 and over represent only 7% of the Indian population, compared to 14% in China and 18% in the United States.
Growth of informal work
You have 73.72% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.