People walk along Heritage Street near the statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in Amritsar on April 19, 2023. - India is set to overtake China as the world's most populous country by the end of June, UN estimates showed on April 19, 2023, posing huge challenges to a nation with creaking infrastructure and insufficient jobs for millions of young people.
The United Nations (UN) predicts that by the middle of 2023, India's population will have risen to 1.4286 billion, surpassing its forecast of 1.4257 billion for mainland China.
The US, with its projected 340 million residents as of the end of June, is in third place. The report's numbers are based on data collected until the end of February.
On Wednesday, April 19, these figures were included in a new version of the UN's World Population Dashboard.
Predicted Transition
Using past UN statistics, population experts have predicted that India's population would overtake China's in April. However, The Guardian said that the UN's most recent report does not provide a specific date for this to occur.
With slowing population growth in China, and the population actually declining for the first time since the early 1960s, the transition was widely expected.
According to CNBC, the UN has predicted that China's population will drop to 1.313 billion by 2050 and plummet to 800 million by 2100. The traditional one-child policy of the nation, which was changed to allow for two children in 2016 and three in 2021, has been blamed by experts for the decrease.
The UN's population estimates do not include the "special administrative regions" of Hong Kong at 7.5 million or Macao at 0.7 million.
A representative for the Chinese foreign ministry emphasized that benefits from population growth depended on both the size and the quality of the population. "Population is important but talents are also important ... China has taken active measures to respond to population ageing," Wang Wenbin stated.
Meanwhile, Reuters cites official statistics showing that India's population growth has slowed to 1.2% annually from 1.7% in the prior decade. The 2011 census is the most recent one that has been made public for India.
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No Reason to Stress Over
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) warns against forgetting human rights and autonomy in conversations about whether population increase is a worry in its study State of World Population 2023, issued on Wednesday. This research covers the global population reaching 8 billion people in November 2022.
UNFPA also conducted a public opinion poll and found that the most prevalent response in India, Brazil, Egypt, and Nigeria was that their respective countries' populations "were too large and fertility rates were too high."
According to The Guardian, the report indicated that population statistics should not cause worry or panic. Instead, if people's freedoms and preferences are respected, they should be considered a sign of growth and progress.
The head of the organization, Natalia Kanem, claimed that having more children is neither the cause nor the cure for problems like global warming, pandemics, war, mass migration, and economic insecurity.
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