Economy

World forecast in 2023 by Economist;

China has been the most populous country in the world for hundreds of years. This country had about 225 million people in 1750, which was more than a quarter of the world’s population. India, which was not a politically unified country at the time, was the second largest with a population of almost 200 million. India will take over the title of the most populous country in the world in 2023.

India’s population will surpass China’s on April 14, 2023. Tomorrow, the population of India is expected to be 1,425,775,850

The title of the most populous country in the world is worth little in itself, but it is a sign of things that matter. It would seem more unusual that India does not have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council while China does.

Although China’s economy is almost six times larger than India’s, India’s growing population is helping it overtake China. Between now and 2050, India is expected to be responsible for more than one-sixth of the increase in the world’s workforce (ages 15-64).

In contrast, China’s population is on the verge of a sharp decline. The number of working-age Chinese reached its peak a decade ago. By 2050, the average age of the country will be 51 years, which is 12 years more than now. An aging China must work harder to maintain its political and economic influence.

Both countries took drastic measures to limit their population growth in the 20th century. The famine of 1959-1961 caused by China’s “One Giant Leap Forward” policy was a big factor in convincing the Communist Party of the need to curb population growth. A decade later, China launched the “Later, Longer, Fewer” campaign (later marriages, longer intervals between childbearing and fewer children).

British demographer Tim Dyson says the policy had a bigger impact than the more famous one-child policy introduced in 1980. The decline in fertility, from more than six babies per woman in the late 1960s to fewer than three in the late 1970s, was the fastest in history for any large population, he says.

China’s economic miracle was partly the result of an increase in the ratio of working-age adults to children and the elderly from the 1970s to the early 2000s. But the existence of more parents than children is a problem as the parents get older. The country will now pay a price as its boom generation retires and becomes dependent on the younger generation after that.

India’s efforts to reduce fertility have been less successful. India was the first country to introduce family planning on a national scale in the 1950s. Mass sterilization campaigns, encouraged by Western benefactors, grew and were implemented with greater vigor during the state of emergency declared by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1977-1975.

The government, led by his son Sanjay, forced men to undergo vasectomy under the threat of salary or job loss. The police used to arrest poor men from railway stations for sterilization. About 2,000 men died from botched surgeries.

Forced sterilization ended after Indira Gandhi lost an election. India’s fertility has declined, but less and more slowly than China’s. With a median age of 28 and a growing working-age population, India now has an opportunity to reap its demographic dividend.

The economy of this country has recently replaced the British economy as the fifth largest economy in the world and will be ranked third by 2029. But India’s prosperity depends on the productivity of its youth, which is not the same as that of China. Less than half of Indian adults are in the labor force, compared to two-thirds in China. Chinese aged 25 and above have an average of 1.5 more years of education than Indians of the same age.

However, this will not spare Amrchin from suffering the consequences of the depopulation he engineered. The government ended the one-child policy in 2016 and removed all family size restrictions in 2021. But the birth rate is still declining. China’s zero-covid policy has made young adults reluctant to have children. The government is facing resistance to implementing its own plans to raise the average retirement age, which at 54 is among the lowest in the world. Wealth in China’s main pension fund may run out by 2035. However, perhaps the most painful thing for China is the emergence of India as a superpower in its vicinity.

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