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There were a bunch of stories earlier this week highlighting the fact that, in the coming months, China will no longer be the nation with the largest population on earth. Instead, India will become the most populous nation sometime this summer.
India is set to surpass China as the world’s most populous nation, with almost 3 million more people by the middle of this year, data released by the United Nations on Wednesday showed.
Based on the projections, India’s population by mid-year will reach 1.4286 billion, compared to China’s 1.4257 billion – 2.9 million fewer – according to the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) “State of World Population Report” for 2023…
China has held the distinction of most populous country since at least 1950, when the UN population records began.
But the shift isn’t happening simply because India is outgrowing China. In fact, it’s happening because China’s population is declining. In 2022, it’s population declined for the first time in 60 years.
The population fell in 2022 to 1.411 billion, down some 850,000 people from the previous year, China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced during a Tuesday briefing on annual data.
Analysts said the decline was the first since 1961 during the great famine triggered by former leader Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward.
“The population will likely trend down from here in coming years. This is very important, with implications for potential growth and domestic demand,” said Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management.
This decline is potentially a very big problem for the entire world given how many products are currently produced in China. But it will be worst of all for China starting with the country’s housing market which is a huge part of its overall economy.
