India’s population bulge –reaching a size of 1.46 billion as per UN’s latest State of world population report – remains a concern, but the future might not be as hopeless as was feared in the past. For one, the fertility rate has fallen below the replacement level of 2.1 to 1.9 births per woman now. Notably, in the 1970s, an average Indian woman had five children. With the advent of birth control measures and changes in lifestyle, the unbridled growth in population has been checked across the world.
Thomas Robert Malthus, advancing a theory before the start of the 18th Century, envisioned famine and pestilence as natural ways to control population growth. Yet, his stress was that the growth in food supply will not match with the larger growth in population — and that this could result in poverty and other hardships. In response, China went in for harsh population control steps, while India used persuasion to promote population control. China’s overdrive reached a level wherein it recently started encouraging more child births, as controls reduced the population in a big way. The red nation thus feared facing a problem of insufficient manpower to boost its economic growth. India, on the other hand, overtook China as the world’s largest-populated country while it also boasts of having the world’s largest stock of young population.
The fear of population growth is dissipating worldwide. Most European nations now depend on migrant labour to run its economic activities. Women there are less interested in marriage and child-rearing and concentrate more on employment and individual freedom. In Asia, Japan faces a similar scenario and its labour force is largely drawn from neighbouring nations like South Korea. In the new age of Globalization, migrations have majorly increased. The large numbers of Indians are not only criss-crossing states but also going abroad and taking up jobs even in the guise of education. Most families here limit the number of their offspring to two, as is also evident in the fall in fertility rate. Some 68 per cent of the population in India today is in the working age of 15-64. This demographic advantage, however, is not being properly made use of. Large numbers of them lazy away their time in the absence of opportunities to engage in productive work. Large-scale industrialization was the way forward, but this has not been happening due also to our corrupt systems and bureaucratic red tape. The manufacturing sector is not growing at the desired pace. If the present demographic dividend is not taken advantage of, and if huge savings are not done for the future from the present favourable scene, India will face a problem of feeding a huge, unproductive old-age population. Notably, life expectancy is steadily increasing due to better health care facilities. China, on the other hand, is making full use of its people’s energies, ensuring huge economic growth and saving for the future. It’s time to turn adversity to advantage here too.
