The report by UN’s World Population Prospects 2022, released on July 11, which is World Population Day, India’s population is expected to increase to 1.429 billion from the current 1.417, which will be marginally higher than China's 1.426 billion people.
Director John Wilmoth at the UN population division has said the world population expansion was slowing down but was still growing. The UN expects the world population to touch 8 billion later this year, 9 billion around 2037 and 10 billion around 2058.
By 2080, the world population is expected to reach 10.4 billion people. Growth rates in China were slowing down, while those in India were increasing. “we expect India to surpass China as the world’s most populous nation,” Wilmoth has said.
By 2050, India’s population will reach 1,668 million, far exceeding China’s declining population at 1,317 million. The global population by 2050 will have touched 9.7 billion, the UN reports predict.
The population in high-income countries was grown due to the migration of people from other nations. At the same time, the population of people above 65 was growing faster due to increasing longevity. “From 1950-2050, we expect the population above 65 to grow from 5 to 16 per cent of the total. By 2100 it is projected that the global population above the age of 65 will be considerably larger than the population below the age of 15,” Wilmoth has said.
By 2050, the number of persons 65 years and above are expected to be more than double that of 5-year-olds and the same as 12-year-olds.
The report predicts that India’s fertility rate is expected to dip to 1.78 from the current 2.01 by 2050 and 1.69 in 2100, compared to the global average of 2.3.
Globally, life expectancy reached 72.8 years in 2019, an increase of almost nine years since 1990. Further reductions in mortality are projected to result in average longevity of around 77.2 years globally in 2050. The global population aged 65 years or above is projected to rise from 10 per cent in 2022 to 16 per cent in 2050.
