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India leads China due to both its rapid population growth and China's decline. India will overtake China as the world's most populous country in the coming week, affecting nearly 1.43 billion people, the United Nations said on Monday. mainland China," the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs said. Last week, the UN's annual report on the state of the world's population announced that the milestone would be reached by mid-2023.
India leads China due to both its rapid population growth and China's decline after reaching 1.426 million last year.
Considered the most populous country in the world since the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. C., China is expected to decline steadily to around a billion people by the end of this century, according to UN projections.
China's downfall is strongly tied to decades of maintaining a strict one-child policy for married couples, which ended in 2016.
Furthermore, the decline in their birth rates is also attributed to the rising cost of living and the increasing number of Chinese women entering the workforce and seeking higher education.
Meanwhile, it is "virtually certain" that India's population will continue to grow for decades to come, according to the United Nations.
Last year, China's fertility rate fell to one of the lowest levels in the world at 1.2 births per woman.
For India, which took much longer than China to control population growth, the fertility rate was 2.0 births per woman, just below the replacement level of 2.1.
"India's declining investment in human capital and slower economic growth during the 1970s and 1980s contributed to a more gradual decline in fertility than in China," the UN said.
Both countries have to deal with rapidly aging populations, China more so than India.
India faces enormous challenges in providing energy, food and shelter for its growing population, and many of its huge cities are already struggling with water shortages, air and water pollution, and overcrowded slums.
Overtaking China sheds light on the challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces in providing jobs for the millions of young people who enter the job market each year.
Meanwhile, China's economy is facing increasing challenges to fill jobs due to its aging population.
Beijing said last week that its national strategy is designed "to actively respond to population aging, promote the three-child policy and support measures, and actively respond to changes in population development."
“China's demographic dividend has not disappeared. The talent dividend is taking shape and the development momentum remains strong,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.
