New Delhi: World's most populous country China has reported its first overall population decline in the last six decades. Ageing society and a plunging birth rate are the factors behind the decline in China's population. The National Bureau of Statistics reported the country had 850,000 fewer people at the end of 2022 than over the previous year. The last time China is believed to have recorded a population decline was during the Great Leap Forward at the end of the 1950s, Mao Zedong's disastrous drive for collective farming and industrialisation that produced a massive famine killing tens of millions of people.


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According to United Nations' report in 2020, India is projected to surpass China as the world's most populous country in 2023. The population prospects report says that India's population stands at 1.412 billion in 2022, compared with China's 1.426 billion. India is projected to have a population of 1.668 billion in 2050, way ahead of China's 1.317 billion people by the middle of the century.


Also Read: China records population decline for the first time since 1950s


The median age of an Indian this year was 28.7 years, compared to 38.4 for China and 48.6 for Japan against a global value of 30.3 years, according to official data.


According to UNFPA estimates, around 68 per cent of India's population is between 15-64 years old in 2022, while people aged 65 and older were seven per cent of the population.


As per UN estimates, over 27 per cent of India's population is between the ages of 15-29 years. At 253 million, India is also home to the world's largest adolescent population (10-19 years).


According to UNFPA projections, India will continue to have one of the youngest populations in the world till 2030 and India is experiencing a demographic window of opportunity, a 'youth bulge' that will last till 2025.


India, formerly a powerful driver of the number of people on the planet, however, is experiencing a marked slowdown. India's annual population growth has averaged 1.2% since 2011, compared with 1.7% in the 10 years previously, government figures show.
 
Further slowing can be expected. India's total fertility rate (TFR) - children per woman - fell to 2 in the latest assessment period, for 2019-2021, from 3.4 in 1992-93, according to a government report issued last month. It is estimated that the average must be 2.1 for the population to reproduce itself.