India’s Population Growth: Boon Or Bane

Of the current world population of 8 billion in 2022, India and China account for roughly 2.8 billion, on a more or less equal basis. The Chinese, thanks to their recently reversed One Child Policy introduced in the 1970s, are distinctly ageing, even as they will have 1.37 billion people in 2050, to India’s 1.66 billion.

But to get a shift towards younger Chinese, it will take two to three decades. How will they manage in between? And that is provided economically hard-pressed young people actually decide to have more children. When the One Child Policy was introduced, people longed for more children. But now, a lot of young people simply don’t.  The Western trend has also long reversed. Europe, America and the developed world are having very few children, and the native population is shrinking. Many places have a negative growth rate now. Parts, near forests in Germany, have ghost villages, and wolves reclaiming them.

Immigration, refugees, and guest workers, cause social pressures owing to clash of cultures, colour and religion. This is in addition to racial tensions inherited from the importation of various ethnicities as labourers in earlier generations. Even with progressive and enlightened policies, most countries have an uneasy ‘melting pot’ scenario, particularly when debts have spiralled, the economies are not growing as before, and present circumstances threaten a recession.

A war in Ukraine, prosecuted by Russia, has nearly derailed the US, EU and British economies in  just a few months, following on from the ravages of Covid.

In India, our birth rates have certainly moderated since the seventies, and we are just below the replacement rate of 2.1 at 2.0 for the first time. However, because of a huge base population, the numbers will rise by 2050 to nearly 1.70 billion from some 1.4 billion at present.

By 2070, a further decline in the average birth rate towards 1.0 will see the Indian population actually shrinking at last. The good thing is, about a third of the Indian population is under 35, and this statistic will sustain for the next 15 years, even as the rest of the population ages, with burdensome costs and higher life expectancy.

However, providing jobs for many millions is outside the scope of any government in the 21^st century. This, more so because of increasing mechanisation that calls for less labour in order to be efficient and competitive. Entrepreneurship, start-ups, self-employment of various kinds, is the only answer, alongside the service industry that accounts for more than 50% of the economy.

But this calls for skilling and reskilling all the time. The government is aware of this, and is cooperating with industry to provide avenues for skilling, vocational training and refresher courses. The old university degree route to a job is largely out-of-date, at least for the masses.

In absolute numbers then, since we are able to feed this gargantuan population by growing all our own food, and creating a surplus for export, things are good enough for the moment. This is unlike China, that imports a good deal of its food and is suffering shortages.

However, the greatest growth in population in India, higher than the national average, is taking place amongst the poorest, in the least developed states, amongst the uneducated and malnourished.

There is a growing urban-rural divide as well, with urban India voluntarily controlling its population growth, fuelled by higher incomes, better awareness and adoption of contraception, education, health and aspiration. Most families do not exceed two children.

Rural India is seeing a steady migration to the towns, cities and metro cities as the constant sub-division of inherited land holdings into ever smaller parcels makes it unsustainable. Many landless labourers also go to the cities to find work, quite often in construction. The number of B, C, D, category towns and cities have mushroomed into their hundreds.

Others have migrated abroad for a time, particularly to the Arabian Gulf. Indian expatriates in their millions work abroad and send back handsome remittances to the home country.

The service economy in rural areas is quite often self-employed, and higher rural incomes in good harvest years fuel mechanisation, sale of vehicles and farming inputs, trade with a range of goods to rival urban areas, and growing consumption. In fact, many FMCG companies now have greater aggregated sales in rural areas than they do in urban clusters. Part of this is due to lack of rural taxation and MSP regimes. Internet connectivity has been empowering, and opened up the entire country and markets abroad.

The advent of satellite TV, social media and much better connectivity in terms of road, rail and water borne infrastructure has made the rural populations more sophisticated, demanding and mobile. This too is a sort of continuous urbanisation of the hinterland that will grow further with the uptake of 5G. Already the landscape has changed beyond recognition from a decade ago.

There is a possibility therefore that the UN projections and our own survey in 2021 plus the upcoming census, the first after 2011, may be favourably impacted by these modernising forces.

However, per capita income cannot grow appreciably unless overall population numbers come down, even if none are pushed down below the poverty line.

This per capita income is the vast gap between India and the developed world even as India’s GDP grows at the fastest amongst all major economies. At $5 trillion GDP, expected to come as soon as 2026-27, the pressure on our much improved infrastructure will not ease significantly. Neither will a per capita grow from around $ 2,000 to the developed world’s $ 50,000 odd.

But then, the developed world has not seen a population increase at all, let alone a quintupling in the last 75 years, along with an impressive rise in life expectancy into an average of 73, up to 83 years, because of improved nutrition and health care.

Still, because India enjoys a purchase power parity (PPP) standing that places it at No.3 globally, we are able to manage. This despite our share of inflation and rising prices in a expensive imported  fossil fuel environment.

Population density is another problem that puts immense loads on natural resources, utilities, land prices, educational and health facilities. China has three times our land mass, but a lot of it comes from underpopulated parts of that country such as Tibet. Most Han Chinese are also concentrated in an area roughly defined by the Great Wall of China and the Pacific Ocean.

China is now facing headwinds of below par growth of around 4% in a $ 15 trillion economy.Its export economy of many years has been ravaged. Low demand and offtake in the domestic market is another problem because of vanishing incomes, and the collapse of its foreign infrastructure building. Domestic infrastructure is already over-built, and there are no buyers for thousands of apartments. The construction industry is collapsing. China is suffering food shortages, social unrest, and is reeling under a massive debt pile of external and internal borrowings. It cannot look at going back to the double digit growth rates of the 80s that sustained its rise for 30 years. Its militarism is hampered by inferior, largely copied, military equipment and conscripted soldiers.

India, on the other hand is coming into its own, with upwards of 7% growth on a smaller GDP base of $ 3.5 trillion. This nevertheless puts it at No. 5 amongst the major economies, just ahead of Britain, and behind Germany, Japan , China and the US. At $ 5 trillion it will overtake both Germany and Japan.

India has great sophistication at one end, with ships, aircraft carriers, diesel-electric submarines, nuclear powered submarines, rockets, satellites, missiles, bombs, ammunition, fighter aircraft, helicopters, jet engines, vehicles, drones, radars, cyber warfare blockers, howitzers, machine guns, rifles, bullet-proof vests, all manufactured in-country. Its uptake of digitisation has been more widespread and faster than most other countries. It is a world leader in information Technology. We have one of the best Armed Forces in the world. There are many other achievements in multiple fields like electronics, textiles, garments, automobiles,art, architecture, design, craft, stone-carving, music, sport, many other things, all too numerous to list.

At the same time, it has masses at the vulnerable bottom of the population pyramid, as many as 500 million people, more than the population of most countries. And these are the ones producing the maximum number of children. The people here seem untouched by the 21^st century in their attitudes and views. Disincentives including a population control bill are unlikely to deter people who are neither candidates for government jobs, nor seeking education or health care. Only aspirational awareness can work, as it already has with so many others to a great extent. Religious and Community leaders can certainly help by exhorting their followers not to have children they cannot provide for.

There is a very useful population dividend in India, even a significant number of  highly talented millionaires and billionaires, but it is held back by hordes of people with low exposure to the growth matrix.

We have succeeded at becoming a global force within 75 years in field after field, along with a vibrant democracy. But we could all grow better and faster if those with narrow vision could be transformed into upwardly mobile citizens like the others.

 (1,552 words)

July 12^th, 2022

For Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee