Growing old before it gets rich, India has a people problem

A country in which less than half of the working-age population is even looking for a job is not one that will be able to escape poverty.

By the middle of this century, India will have 1.6 billion people. That’s when the country’s population will finally start to decline, ending up at perhaps a billion by 2100. While that is still around 250 million more people than China will have then, every time India’s population is projected, its peak seems to come earlier and crest lower. While India will be a young country for decades yet, it is aging faster than expected.

The latest round of India’s massive National Family Health Survey underscores the point. The average Indian woman is now likely to have only two children. That’s below the “replacement rate” of 2.1, at which the population would…read more