India is set to overtake China as the world’s most populous country in 2023, each with more than 1.4 billion people this year, a United Nations report said on Monday, warning that high birth rates will challenge economic growth. The world population, estimated at 8 billion by November 15 this year, could rise to 8.5 billion in 2030 and 10.4 billion in 2100 as the death rate slows, according to a report published on World Population Day. India had a population of 1.21 billion in 2011, according to the domestic census, which is conducted once every ten years. The government postponed the 2021 census due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to UN estimates, the world population grew at the slowest rate since 1950, falling below 1% in 2020.In 2021, the average fertility of the world population was 2.3 births per woman per lifetime, down from about 5 births in 1950. Global fertility is projected to further decline to 2.1 births per woman by 2050.”It is an opportunity to celebrate our diversity, recognize our common humanity and admire the advances in health that have increased life expectancy and dramatically reduced maternal and child mortality,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement.
The ever-growing population was a reminder of the shared responsibility to care for the planet and “a reflection on where we are still falling short of our commitments to each other,” he said. Citing an earlier report by the World Health Organization – estimating about 14.9 million deaths related to the Covid-19 pandemic between January 2020 and December 2021, the UN report said global life expectancy at birth fell to 71 years in 2021 from 72, 8 years in 2019, mainly due to the pandemic.
The United Nations has said that more than half of the projected increase in global population by 2050 will be concentrated in eight countries – the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania. Sub-Saharan African countries are expected to contribute more than half of the increase expected by 2050.However, between 2022 and 2050, the population of 61 countries is projected to decline by 1% or more due to declining birth rates.
