Guwahati, July 11: India has overtaken China to become the world’s most populous country, with more than 1.4 billion citizens, in April. Now, India, which is the largest democracy in the world, has added one more stud amongst the comity of nations.
The population of India has grown by more than a billion since 1950. Though growth has now slowed, the number of people in the country is still expected to continue to rise for the next few decades, hitting its peak of 1.7 billion by 2064.
Today on an average 86,000 babies are born in a day in India compared with just 49,000 in China.
United Nations data shows India is world number one in population which grew by 1.56 percent to reach 142.86 crore, overtaking China which is at 142.57 crore.
It has been predicted that India would reach this figure only in 2027, however, reached four years earlier.
According to a new United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report, 25 percent of India’s population is in the age group of 0-14 years, 18 percent in the 10 to 19 age group, 26 percent in the age bracket of 10 to 24 years, 68 percent in 15 to 64 years age group, and 7 percent above 65 years.
The change in the population growth on the one hand have sparked dystopian future for India, while on the other promised utopian grandeur.
While India has one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, and recently overtook the UK as the fifth-largest, experts have stressed that the country needs more investment in education and employment to seize the opportunity presented by a young population over next few decades.
The imminent size of the population is intimately connected to the power dynamics shaping the relationship between nations-for instance, the UN said that the rise in population will consolidate India’s claim to a permanent seat in the Security Council. It is however, a double-edged sword. This is because there are several rising vulnerable constituencies in India’s population pie. India will have one of the largest workforces: globally, one in five working-age persons will live in India in the next 25 years.
But what queers the pitch is the fact that India’s employment fell by a massive 13 million jobs in June 2022 compared to May. India continues to struggle with high youth unemployment and less than 50 percent of working-age Indians are in work-force. The figure for women is even lower, with just 20% a figure that is decreasing as India develops.
Data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) show that over 60 percent of the employable workforces are not even looking for work, putting paid to India’s hope of reaping rewards from its demographic dividend.
The stress that a growing mass of unemployed, young people puts on the social fabric of the country must not be discounted. Moreover, the share of the elderly in the Indian population is expected to steadily rise till at least 2036, straining India’s beleaguered healthcare system.
India saw rapid population growth – almost 2 percent – for much of the second half of the last century. Over time, death rates fell; life expectancy rose and incomes went up. More people – especially – those living in cities accessed clean drinking water and modern sewerage.
India launched a family program in 1952 and laid out a national population policy for the first time only in 1976, around the time China was busy reducing its birth rate. But forced sterilization of millions of poor people in an overzealous family planning programme during the 1957 Emergency – when civil liberties were suspended – led to a social backlash against family planning.
Now, India needs to create enough jobs for its working age population to reap a demographic dividend. But only 40 percent of India’s working-age population works or wants to work, according to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).
More women would need jobs as they spend less time in their working age giving birth and looking after children. The picture here is bleaker: only 10 percent of working-age women were participating in the labor force, according to CMIE, compared with 69 percent in China.
Even today India does not have a socially and economically relevant education policy except patches. Small number of good schools produces student ready for global market.
At the other end of the spectrum, provincial and communal politicians are obsessed about history and language does not worries about basic learning skills and the creation of a knowledge-based economy and society.
Into the vacuum created by inadequate public investment in school education, the private sector is rushing in and now boldly demanding a change of policy that will allow for profit educational institutions.
The burgeoning population is not indicative of the country’s total fertility rate: India’s TFR has dropped below the so-called population replacement threshold for the first time and the National Family Health Survey data say the sharpest decline in TFR has been among Muslims. Yet, the political class’s response to deterrents continues to reek of prejudice and high-handedness.
Be it forced sterilisation drives during the emergency or the two-child norm to contest elections, the focus seldom has been on consent and awareness. Concentrating on districts with high TFR, improved access to education, higher incomes and employment and granting women — socially and legally — greater agency over their bodies and choice of conception could have a salubrious effect on India’s battle to tame the stud bull of population.
Population outburst has not spared India and economy is reeling to manage demands of every citizens. Cities are bloating with no adequate facilities, villages are struggling with industrial pollution, general public is overburdened with hefty daily routine and traffic snarls etc.
Having said that, when world is pondering to find a solution to population woes; India is proudly claiming to be the world’s largest populous country. The figure is indeed a silver lining and a reason for the whole world taking India seriously with investments pouring in, growth rate steadily high and with companies no more enjoying monopoly, consumers having their last laugh. The present situation is a win-win situation for India, but question remains the same if India can manage such massive turnouts?
India’s government needs to act swiftly to change their perception and ensure that there are incentives to create sufficient good quality jobs, according to economists. If it doesn’t want its “demographic dividend” to become a “demographic disaster”, it needs to make policies that support an enabling environment that can provide high-quality education, good health care, respectable employment opportunities, good infrastructure and gender empowerment.