With India becoming the world’s most populous nation, a top UN expert said the big focus for the country now would be quick and effective investments in education, job creation and gender equality that will yield demographic dividend and enable its large population to boost economic growth. According to the United Nations Population Fund’s latest data, India has surpassed China to become the world’s most populous nation with 142.86 crore people.
“I think the big story for India is how they will effectively and quickly invest in what’s required to gain a demographic dividend,” UNFPA lead demographer Rachel Snow said Wednesday as she briefed reporters here on the agency’s State of the World Population report.
The report said that for India the population doubling time was 75 years. It said that 25 per cent of India’s population is aged 0-14, 18 per cent is in the 10-19 year bracket, 26 per cent is in the 10-24 age group, 68 per cent in the 15-64 age group and 7 per cent is aged 65 and older.
Snow added that in India, there is this “big bulge of young people” entering reproductive years, which means fertility will keep growing, as well as the age of life for working.