Yi Fuxian

The View | What the UN got wrong about China’s and India’s populations

The United Nations’ premature declaration that India has surpassed China as the world’s most populous country calls into question the reliability of its projections

Moreover, the UN’s support of harsh population control policies in the two countries in the past does not reflect well on the organisation

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People throng a market place in Mumbai on April 24. The United Nations says India will become the world’s most populous country this year as it eclipses an ageing China, though constant revisions to its population estimates have eroded the UN population agency’s credibility among some observers. Photo: AP

Yi Fuxian

Published: 3:30am, 24 May 2023Updated: 5:49pm, 31 May 2023

Corrected [5:40pm, 31 May, 2023]

[5:40pm, 31 May, 2023]
The sentence, “In 1983, the UNFPA presented the first UN Population Award to Gandhi and Qian, in recognition of their contributions to global population control”, now reads, “In 1983, a UN committee comprising ten member states (with the UN secretary-general and UNFPA’s executive director as ex-officio members) presented the first UN Population Award to Gandhi and Qian, in recognition of their contributions to population control”.
The sentence, “While the UNFPA has consistently defended the Chinese stance on population control, the United States has repeatedly withdrawn funding from the agency, citing its alleged support for forced abortion and sterilisation”, has been amended to, “While UNFPA has defended its work in China, the United States has repeatedly withdrawn funding from the agency, citing its alleged support for forced abortion and sterilisation”.

In April, the United Nations estimated that India had overtaken China as the world’s most populous country. While the announcement received a great deal of media attention, India’s 2024 census is likely to reveal that the UN’s projections have been vastly overestimated.

According to India’s most recent census data, the country’s population stood at 1.03 billion people in 2001 and 1.21 billion in 2011. The UN’s 2022 World Population Prospects (WPP) report, however, put these figures at 1.08 billion and 1.26 billion, respectively. Moreover, India’s National Family Health Survey indicated a fertility rate of 1.99 births per woman in 2017-19, in contrast to the WPP’s estimate of 2.16.

At the 1974 UN population conference in Bucharest, India’s then minister for health and family planning Karan Singh famously said, “Development is the best contraceptive.” While it is often assumed that income per capita is directly correlated with fertility, declining fertility rates are primarily driven by improvements in health and education, along with the wider availability of contraceptives. This trend is evident in India, where the fertility rate has plummeted in tandem with reductions in infant mortality and rising education levels.

India’s development indicators have improved markedly since its previous census. From 2011 to 2021, the country’s infant mortality rate fell from 44 deaths per 1,000 live births to 27. The secondary-education gross enrolment rate rose from 66 per cent to 78 per cent, and the mean years of schooling among adults aged 20 and older increased from 5.8 years to 7.2 years.

The contraceptive prevalence rate rose sharply from 54 per cent in 2013-15 to 67 per cent in 2017-19. Consequently, India’s fertility rate may be as low as 1.6 to 1.7 in 2024, with its population ranging between 1.37 to 1.39 billion, compared to the 1.44 billion projected by the UN.

Absent a socioeconomic paradigm shift, it is likely that India’s fertility rate will drop below 1.2 by 2050 and its population will peak below 1.5 billion, rather than the 1.7 billion projected by the WPP. Fast-forward to the dawn of the 22nd century and the numbers paint an even bleaker picture. While the UN report estimates that India’s population will reach 1.5 billion by 2100, the country’s population could actually fall below a billion.

02:36

India set to overtake China as the world's most populous country in 2023, UN predicts