[ti:UN: India to Have World's Largest Population later This Year]
[al:As It Is]
[ar:VOA]
[dt:2023-04-20]
[by:www.voase.cn]
[00:00.00]The United Nations estimates India will pass China to have the world's largest population sometime later this year. 
[00:13.01]This comes from the U.N. Population Fund's State of the World Population report.
[00:21.23]Both countries have over 1.4 billion people. 
[00:26.41]But India will have about 3 million more people than China sometime around the middle of 2023. 
[00:36.82]The last time India counted its population through a census was 2011. 
[00:45.54]It is not possible to say exactly when India will overtake China. 
[00:52.24]Together, the countries combine for about one third of the world's population.
[01:00.22]China has been the world's largest country since at least 1950. 
[01:07.51]That is the first year the U.N. issued population numbers.
[01:13.75]India's population is four times larger than it was when the country gained independence 76 years ago.
[01:26.10]Recent guesses said India would not surpass China in population until later this decade, but China's birth rate has gone down. 
[01:38.53]While India's birth rate is also going down, China's population is getting older.
[01:46.75]China's population decreased last year for the first time in about 60 years.
[01:54.46]India has 254 million people between the ages of 15 and 24. 
[02:03.36]That is the most in the world. 
[02:06.91]India's fertility rate - the average number of children each woman gives birth to - has been decreasing since 1960.
[02:16.84]But the country's medical system is improving. 
[02:20.71]More babies are surviving their first year of life. 
[02:24.52]The infant mortality rate has gone down over the past 30 years.
[02:31.95]The country could become an economic power. 
[02:35.59]But experts are concerned that there are not enough jobs for young Indians. 
[02:42.64]If the population grows and jobs do not, many people could fall into poverty.
[02:49.55]Right now, the Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE) says only 40 percent of working-age Indians have jobs.
[03:02.66]Mahesh Vyas is the center's director. 
[03:08.38]He called the growing population a "demographic dividend." 
[03:12.55]But he said the country has failed to create enough jobs to see gains from its young workers. 
[03:21.67]He noted that the number of jobs available in India over the last six years has remained at about 405 million.
[03:31.84]India has changed from an impoverished nation in 1947 to Asia's third largest economy, valued at $3 trillion.
[03:45.00]The country exports computer software and vaccines. 
[03:50.04]Millions of people have moved from poverty to the middle class as the number of educated people has grown.
[03:59.11]Poonam Muttreja is head of the Population Foundation of India.
[04:05.52]She said the country must plan now for its young people.
[04:09.64]The country needs to invest in jobs and education.
[04:14.74]"This large population will need a huge investment in skills for them to take advantage of the opportunities that will come up in the economy," she said.
[04:26.37]She added that India needs to pay attention to women and girls as the population grows so they are not "pushed into early marriages and pregnancies, which limit their aspirations."
[04:42.82]The U.N. asked over 1,000 Indians questions about their concerns related to population growth.
[04:51.38]Sixty-three percent said they were worried about economic issues, followed by the environment and health and human rights.
[05:02.95]In China, a foreign ministry spokesperson responded to the U.N.'s report and noted that the most important thing is not a country's population, but its ability to get the most out of the people it has.
[05:23.05]"The population is important," said Wang Wenbin.
[05:28.32]"So is talent," he said, noting "quality" is more important than "quantity."
[05:36.65]I'm Dan Friedell.