Washington [US]: According to a report by Washington-based think tank Pew Research Centre, India is poised to become the world’s most populous country in 2023, surpassing China which has held the position since 1950.
According to the report, the UN expects India to overtake China in April, though it may have already reached this milestone since the UN estimates are projections.
After analyses of data from the UN and other sources, Pew Research Centre mentioned key facts about India’s population and its projected changes in the coming decades.
India’s population has grown by more than one billion people since 1950, the year the UN population data begins, according to the report, the centre claims.
More than 40per cent of India’s population is under the age of 25. Unline India, the other two most populous countries in the world, China and the US, have rapidly ageing populations.
Although India’s birth rate is larger than that of China and the US, it has drastically declined in recent decades. Fertility rates, however, vary widely by community type and state in India.
On average, Indian women in urban areas have their first child 1.5 years later than women in rural areas. India’s artificially wide ratio of baby boys to baby girls, which rose in the 1970s from the use of prenatal diagnostic technology to facilitate sex-selective abortions, is narrowing, the report noted.
Despite a 70 per cent decline in the past three decades, India’s infant mortality rate is still high by regional and international standards. Typically, more people migrate out of India each year than into it, resulting in negative net migration.
