Earth now home to 800 cr people; India emerges top contributor over last decade, adding 17.7 crore

Aditi Tandon

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New Delhi, November 15

As the world crossed the 800 crore population mark on Tuesday, India emerged as the top contributor to the historic milestone having added 17.7 crore people.

Growth stabilising

The good news is that India’s population growth appears to be stabilising. UNFPA

Opportunity for India

The Population Foundation of India says the milestone should be seen as an opportunity for India to plan better and provide a healthy and happy life for people across the world.

Asia and Africa drove much of the 800 crore population growth and both regions are expected to drive the next 100 crore by 2037 too, while Europe’s contribution will be negative due to a declining population.

“India, the largest contributor to the last 100 crore, will surpass China, which was the second largest contributor having added 7.3 crore people and whose contribution to the next 100 crore will be negative, as the world’s most populous nation by 2023,” the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said today.

The UN body hailed India’s population stabilisation noting that it could gain much from the demographic dividend.

“The good news is that India’s population growth appears to be stabilising. The total fertility rate, the average number of children born per woman, has declined from 2.2 to 2.0 at the national level. A total of 31 states and UTs, which constitute 69.7 per cent of the country’s population, have achieved fertility rates below the replacement level of 2.1,” the UNFPA said, underlining India’s advantages on the demographic front. The UN also said as India invests in its younger people, it needs plans for a demographic transition to take better care of a greater proportion of older people in the future.

Importantly, the UNFPA also called upon nations to remove barriers and open pathways for growth of all and cautioned against using numbers to crack down on reproductive rights. “Numbers matter so that governments can develop infrastructure and provide services that accurately reflect its people. But do not discount the individuals who make up that number…Numbers should not be weaponised against infringing on reproductive rights to manipulate low or high population figures. Without rights and choices, health suffers,” said the UNFPA at a time of intense debate on population control in India with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in early October calling for a comprehensive population control policy that applies equally to all.

Overall, the United Nations’ body today said the planet was very much in a position to sustain its vast numbers.

“World population reached 700 crore in 2011 and is estimated to peak at 1,040 crore in the 2080s until 2100. Even amid such feverish hand-wringing in the 1960s over concerns of overpopulation, history has shown that the answer is yes these numbers are sustainable,” the UNFPA said.

Importantly, the pace of world population growth has been declining since the 1970s, dropping below 1 per cent for the first time in 2020.

According to the World Population Prospects, 2022, two-thirds of the global population lives in a country or area where lifetime fertility is below 2.1 births per woman, roughly the level required for zero growth in the long run for a population with low mortality. UN estimates show that more than half of the projected increase in the global population up to 2050 will be concentrated in eight countries — India, Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania, while sub-Saharan Africa is expected to contribute more than half of the increase.