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Counting millions of people is never an easy task, but the United Nations says its latest calculations show that by the end of this weekend, India will have more people than China, marking an epochal shift in global demographics.
Most of the world has grown up with China holding the title of the world’s most populous country, but decades of restrictive policies limiting families to one child dramatically slowed China’s birth rate, allowing India to pull ahead.
But having a chart-topping headcount is not necessary a title that most countries covet.
A few years ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed concern about India’s “population explosion” and lavished praise on families who carefully considered the impact of more babies — on themselves, and the nation.
“In 21st-century India, the ability to fulfill dreams starts with a person, starts with a family. If the population is not educated, not healthy, then neither the home nor the country can be happy,” Modi said.
So how did India’s population get so big, and how long will it last?
CNN analyzed the UN’s World Population Prospects data and spoke to experts to delve beneath the headline numbers at the detail surrounding India’s demographic shift.
How did India get so big?
Not surprisingly, fertility is key to understanding what drives the rise or fall of a country’s population. It is commonly accepted that a country’s average fertility rate — children per woman — must be 2.1 for the population to sustain itself — and even more to grow.
Back in the 1960s, when today’s grandparents were having children, India’s fertility rate was 6, around the same rate as some African countries now.
But, according to the government, India’s total fertility rate dropped to 2.0 in the latest nationwide assessment period from 2019 to 2021, down from 3.4 from 1992 to 1993. The rise in population despite a drop in the fertility rate can be explained by “demographic momentum.”
“When the fertility rate drops, the population continues to grow for several decades. And that is because younger, large cohorts are still growing into that age when they become parents,” said Frank Swiaczny, senior researcher at the Federal Institute for Population Research.
So, even with a replacement or sub-replacement fertility rate, India’s population will continue to grow slowly because of the considerable number of women entering their reproductive years.
Not surprisingly for a nation of its size, India’s fertility rate is uneven across the country, contributing to a north-south divide that sees more babies produced in the north. But even there, the numbers aren’t off the charts.
“What really surprised us is that the highest fertility rate in India — 3.0 in Bihar — is not even that high,” said Barbara Seligman, chief strategy and growth officer and senior vice president at PRB, a nonprofit group that focuses on demographic data and population research.
