United Nations (UN) on 29 July 2015 released the report titled ‘World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision’ at the UN Headquarters in New York.
According to the report, India will surpass China to become the most populous nation in the world by 2022. In the forecast issued by UN in 2013 India was expected to surpass China’s population by 2028.
India’s population prospects
- It is projected to retain the top spot till 2100 and its population is projected to grow for several decades after 2022. It is forecasted to grow to 1.5 billion in 2030 and 1.7 billion in 2050.
- On the other hand, the population of China is expected to remain fairly constant until the 2030s, after which it is expected to slightly decrease.
- At present, India’s population is approximately 1.31 billion as compared to China’s population of 1.38 billion.
- Further India is one of the nine countries where half- of the world’s population is expected to be concentrated during the period 2015-2050.
- The other eight countries are Nigeria, Pakistan, Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, US, Indonesia and Uganda.
- India’s life expectancy at birth will is forecasted to improve over the next decades, growing from 71.7 years in 2025-2030 to 75.9 years in 2045-2050 and 84.6 years in 2095-2100.
General highlights of the report
- The world population reached 7.3 billion as of mid- 2015, implying that the world has added approximately one billion people in the span of the last twelve years.
- The world population is projected to increase by more than one billion people within the next 15 years, reaching 8.5 billion in 2030, and to increase further to 9.7 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100.
- Sixty per cent of the global population lives in Asia (4.4 billion), 16 per cent in Africa (1.2 billion), 10 per cent in Europe (738 million), 9 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean (634 million), and the remaining 5 per cent in Northern America (358 million) and Oceania (39 million).
- During the period, Africa has the highest rate of population growth among major areas, growing at a pace of 2.55 per cent annually.
- Among the ten largest countries in the world, one is in Africa (Nigeria), five are in Asia (Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan), two are in Latin America (Brazil and Mexico), one is in Northern America (United States of America), and one is in Europe (Russian Federation).
- The populations of 48 countries or areas in the world are expected to decrease between 2015 and 2050.
- In 2015, 50.4 per cent of the world’s population is male and 49.6 per cent is female.
- The median age of the global population, that is, the age at which half the population is older and half is younger, is 29.6 years.
- About one-quarter (26 percent) of the world’s people is under 15 years of age, 62 per cent are aged 15-59 years, and 12 per cent are 60 or over.
- The report is the 24th round of UN population estimates and it has been prepared by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the UN Secretariat.
