India To Surpass China as World’s Most Populous Nation
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India will surpass China's population this month. Or maybe in July. Or, perhaps it's happened already?
Demographers are unsure exactly when India will take the title as the most populous nation in the world because they're relying on estimates to make their best guess. But they know it's going to happen soon, if it hasn't occurred by now.
China has had the most people in the world since at least 1950, the year United Nations population data began. Both China and India have more than 1.4 billion people, and combined they make up more than a third of the world's 8 billion people.
"Actually, there is no way we can know exactly when India will surpass China," said Bruno Schoumaker, a demographer at Universite Catholique de Louvain in Belgium. "There is some uncertainty, not only about India's population, but also China's population."
STILL, WHEN IS IT HAPPENING?
Mathematical calculations from a range of surveys, as well as birth and death records, project that India will overtake China sometime in the middle of April. But demographers warn that it should be taken with a grain of salt since the numbers are fuzzy and could be revised.
"It's a crude approximation, a best guess," said Patrick Gerland, chief of the population estimates and projections section at the U.N.
Not long ago, India wasn't expected to become most populous until later this decade. But the timing has been sped up by a drop in China's fertility rate, with families having fewer children.
WHY IS INDIA MOVING AHEAD?
China has an aging population with stagnant growth even after the government seven years ago retreated from a one-child policy, and just two years ago said couples could have three children.
India has a much younger population, a higher fertility rate and a decrease in infant mortality over the last three decades.
India has more babies born each year than in any other country, while China has joined many European countries in having more deaths each year than births, said Dudley Poston, Jr., an emeritus professor of sociology at Texas A&M University.
WHY DOES THIS MATTER?
There's more than bragging rights at stake over which nation is the world's most populous -- there are social and economic consequences. In India, that means a growing labor force and growth that sparks economic activity. In China, that means fewer working-age adults able to support an aging population.
Once a country hits a low fertility level, it's often hard to recover population growth, even with changes in government policy to encourage more births, said Toshiko Kaneda, technical director of demographic research at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington.
"Psychologically, it will be tough for China, especially given the rivalry in other areas between the two countries," Gietel-Basten said. "It is a big moment in human history as the baton is passed to India."