By 2100, India’s population is expected to decline, but it will still be 2.5 times larger than China’s.

United nations:

India’s population is expected to peak in the early 2060s at about 1.7 billion and then decline by 12 percent, but the country will remain the world’s most populous throughout the century, the United Nations said.

The World Population Prospects 2024 report, released here on Thursday, said the world’s population is expected to continue growing over the next 50 to 60 years, peaking at around 10.3 billion people in the mid-2080s, up from 8.2 billion in 2024. After peaking, the world’s population is expected to gradually decline, falling to 10.2 billion by the end of the century.

India, which overtook China to become the world’s most populous country last year, will continue to do so until 2100.

“India’s population, which is expected to remain the world’s largest throughout the century, is likely to decline by 12 per cent after peaking in the early 2060s at about 1.7 billion,” said the report published by the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

According to the report, India’s population is expected to reach 1.45 billion in 2024, and will peak at 1.69 billion in 2054. After that, India’s population is expected to decline to 1.5 billion by the end of the century in 2100, but the country will remain the most populous country on Earth.

Responding to a question from the Press Trust of India about India’s population projections, Claire Menozzi, Population Officer, Population Division, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, told a news conference: “India is currently the world’s most populous country and is expected to remain so throughout the century. The population is currently estimated at 1.45 billion and is expected to increase further” to 1.69 billion.

“India’s population is expected to peak in the 2060s and then begin to decline slightly. By the end of the century, India’s population is expected to be around 1.5 billion, but it will still be the world’s largest country by a wide margin,” the report said. China’s population, currently 1.41 billion in 2024, will fall to 1.21 billion in 2054 and then to 633 million by 2100, the report said.

“China, currently the world’s second-most populous country, is projected to experience the largest absolute population loss between 2024 and 2054 (204 million people),” followed by Japan (21 million people) and Russia (10 million people). “Longer-term population projections are less certain” for China, the report added.

“But given its large size and persistently low fertility, China is also likely to experience the largest population decline of any country by the end of the century (786 million). By 2100, China is projected to lose more than half of its current population and return to a population size similar to that of the late 1950s (50% probability).”

Asked about China’s dramatically lower population projections, John Wilmoth, director of the Population Division at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said: “This is really related to the fertility level that we currently see in China. The current figure is about one birth per woman on average over a lifetime.”

“Given that you need 2.1 births to maintain the current population without immigration, if fertility levels stay at that low level, even if they rise a little bit, any fertility level if it’s below two, or particularly below 1.8 or below 1.5, you’re really getting into low fertility levels and that leads to a very large long-term decline. That’s true for China. It’s true for some of the other countries in this analysis,” Wilmoth said.

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