When will India’s population stabilise?
Given the above factors, it appears that India may at last be turning the corner on its population problem. So, will India’s population stabilise soon? Not yet — because Indians are also beginning to live longer. Life expectancy has risen in the last two decades from 58 years to around 64 years. We can reasonably expect this to rise by another 15 years by the middle of the century. Note that rising life expectancy is the main factor driving population growth in countries like China where fertility rates have fallen below replacement levels. However, from a reproductive perspective, this is an “optical illusion”. Unless we discover the elixir of immortality, population growth from longevity will eventually unwind itself. China’s population, for instance, will begin to decline from 2030. My rough back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that India’s population will stabilise around 2040-45 at about 1.48 billion. This may seem very far away but in demographic terms it is very close. Inde
