India overtook China to become the world’s most populous country, according to a United Nations estimate on Monday. A demographic shift has not occurred since the United Nations began recording such data in 1950.
Highlights
- India’s population now stands at 1,425,775,850, overtaking China, which has been the most populous country since at least 1950, reports the Guardian and Wall Street Journal, citing world population projections from the United Nations.
- The news comes five days after the United Nations predicted that India’s population will overtake China’s by summer. However, the UN has not specified when India will become the most populous country and has told the media that it may have already overtaken China.
- The United States remains the third most populous country, with a population of about 340 million.
main context
According to the World Bank, India’s population has steadily grown faster than China’s for decades. During the first decade of the 21st century, India recorded an annual growth rate of about 1% or more, while China’s growth rate fell to only 0.1% in 2021. The evolution of demographics came after decades of China’s attempts to reduce the country’s birth rates, Including the rate. The child policy was introduced in the 1980s and abolished in 2015. While the one-child law first slowed growth, the country now faces an aging population and a declining birth rate, raising fears of major economic consequences when China’s labor force stops growing or even shrinks. According to the United Nations, a quarter of India’s population is between the ages of 0 and 14, compared to 17% in China.
Translated article from the American magazine Forbes – Author: Catherine Hamilton
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