India is set to overtake China as the world's most populous country by the end of June, according to the United Nations Population Fund's State of World Population report. The report estimates that India's population will reach 1.4286 billion by mid-year, which is almost three million more than China's 1.4257 billion. This seismic shift presents enormous challenges to India, which already struggles with creaking infrastructure and a lack of jobs for millions of young people.
China has long been regarded as the world's most populous country since the fall of the Roman Empire, but last year its population shrank for the first time since 1960, while India's population continues to rise. India spans from the Himalayas to the beaches of Kerala and has 22 official languages, and nearly half of its inhabitants are under 25.
India faces enormous challenges providing electricity, food, and housing for its growing population, and many of its massive cities already struggle with water shortages, air and water pollution, and packed slums. The number of people in India has grown by more than one billion since 1950, the year the UN began gathering population data, according to the Pew Research Centre.
China ended its strict "one-child policy," imposed in the 1980s amid overpopulation fears, in 2016 and started letting couples have three children in 2021. Many blame its falling birth rates on the soaring cost of living, as well as the growing number of women entering the workforce and seeking higher education.
The census will shine a spotlight on how the Indian economy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is struggling to provide jobs for the millions of young people entering the job market every year. The new UN report also estimated that the global population will have reached 8.045 billion by mid-2023, by which time almost one in five people on the planet will be Indian.
India generates most of its electricity from coal and has started to become more assertive on the world stage, pushing for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Many Western countries are banking on the world's largest democracy, already a member of the US-led Quad alliance, becoming more of a geopolitical counterweight to China.
