Relevant for prelims and GS paper 1 and sociology:-
In just eight years, India is projected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country. According to estimates in a new United Nations report released Monday, India is also expected to add 273 million people by 2050 and will remain the most populated until the end of the century.
The report stated that in 2019, India has an estimated population of 1.37 billion and China 1.43 billion and by 2027, India’s population is projected to surpass China’s.
The global population is projected to increase by another 2 billion people by 2050, from 7.7 billion in 2019 to 9.7 billion thirty years down the line, according to ‘The World Population Prospects 2019’ published by the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
Between now and 2050, 55 countries are estimated to see their populations shrink by at least one per cent. Incidentally, since 2010, 27 countries have recorded a minimum one per cent reduction in population. This trend of a growing number of countries experiencing a decline in population has been attributed to sustained low levels of fertility and, in some cases, high rates of emigration. In China, the largest of these 55 countries, the population is projected to shrink by as much as 2.2 per cent or 31.4 million by 2050. In the same period, India is expected to add 273 million people more to its headcount. India leads the set of nine countries that will make up for more than half the projected growth of the global population by 2050.