Afghan Voice Agency (AVA)_Monitoring, “By the end of this month, India’s population is expected to reach 1,425,775,850 people, matching and then surpassing the population of mainland China,” the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs said.
Last week, the U.N.’s annual State of World Population report had said the milestone would come by midyear 2023.
India is topping China due to both rapid growth in its own population and a decline in China’s after hitting 1.426 billion last year.
Meanwhile, India’s population “is virtually certain” to continue to grow in the coming decades, according to the United Nations.
The median U.N. projection sees India hitting 1.5 billion by midcentury — though officials stressed it could be much lower or higher.
China’s fall is heavily tied to decades of maintaining a strict one-child policy for married couples, which ended in 2016.
In addition, its slower growth is attributed to the rising cost of living and the growing number of Chinese women going into the workforce and seeking higher education.
Last year, China’s fertility rate fell to one of the lower levels in the world at 1.2 births per woman.
Surpassing China shines a spotlight on the challenge facing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide jobs for the millions of young people entering the job market every year.
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