World soars to 8 bn; India to beat China next year.

November 16, 2022

The world’s population touched 8 billion, a remarkable milestone for humanity that added one billion people in the last 12 years alone. India is expected to surpass China as the world’s most populous nation by next year.
The population prospects report had said India’s population stands at 1.412 billion in 2022, compared with China’s 1.426 billion. India is projected to have a population of 1.668 billion in 2050, way ahead of China’s 1.317 billion people by the middle of the century.
The world population numbered under one billion for millennia until around 1,800, and that it took more than 100 years to grow from one to two billion.
The global population is projected to surpass nine billion around 2037 and 10 billion around 2058, according to UN estimates
The year 2023 could well be a landmark year for India as it is projected to overtake China as the world’s most populous country with prospects to reap the demographic dividend as the median age of an Indian this year was 28.7 years, compared to 38.4 for China and 48.6 for Japan against a global value of 30.3 years, according to official data.
According to UNFPA estimates, 68 per cent of India’s population is between 15-64 years old in 2022, while people aged 65 and older were seven per cent of the population.
As per UN estimates, over 27 per cent of the country’s population is between the ages of 15-29 years. At 253 million, India is also home to the world’s largest adolescent population (10-19 years).
The UNFPA has noted that India has its largest ever adolescent and youth population. According to UNFPA projections, India will continue to have one of the youngest populations in the world till 2030 and India is experiencing a demographic window of opportunity, a “youth bulge” that will last till 2025.
It listed eight trends for a world of 8 billion – slowing growth, fewer children, longer lives, people on the move, aging populations, women outliving men, two pandemics and shifting centres.
The UN agency elaborated that after half a century of falling fertility, growth in global population is slowing down.
Further, the UNFPA said across the world people are living longer. In 2019, global life expectancy at birth stood at 72.8 years, up almost nine years since 1990 and is projected to rise to 77.2 years by 2050.
As fertility declines and life expectancy rises, the global population is aging fast and the share of people 65 and over in the population stands at nearly 10 per cent as of 2022 and is projected to rise to 16 per cent by 2050.
Between now and 2050, almost all of the global increase in the numbers of children and youth and of adults under age 65 will occur in low-income and lower-middle-income countries.