1. The Future
POPULATION
of India
A Long-range Demographic View
Population Foundation of India
Population Reference Bureau August 2007
2.
3. PREFACE
India’s population passed the one billion mark in 2000 and, this year, celebrated its We are happy to have collaborated with the Population Foundation of India in this
60th year as an independent country. Its population is likely to pass China’s as the important research. A country’s future population size, its geographic distribution
world’s largest within 20 years. All of this leads quite naturally to the question: how and its age composition are among its most significant future considerations.
large might the population of the world’s largest democracy become? Projecting any country’s population in the long term is an obvious challenge
This is the question that the Population Foundation of India and its partner, the and one that increases the further one ventures into the future. Yet, in demography,
Population Reference Bureau, have addressed in an exercise to project India’s future developments result from past events. India’s present population is a
population for the long term. While no one can predict future events with certitude, consequence of trends in birth and death rates observed in the past. As a result, its
it is possible to examine the consequences of possible future trends in future is partly determined by its age structure, by the number of young people
demographic rates, with the future birth rate a significant factor. who will be tomorrow’s parents.
In this publication, two scenarios of India’s future population are offered. Both In India, fertility rates have exceptionally wide variation, from an average of
assume that fertility will decline continuously to the point where couples average only 1.7 children in Kerala to 4.3 in Bihar. Such a wide range adds additional
two children each, the goal of India’s National Population Policy 2000. The uncertainty to any population projection. But, at the same time, it adds to the
scenarios differ in one respect: one assumes that states with higher current fertility importance of evaluating the country’s possible population future. In this exercise,
will decline to the “replacement level” of 2.1 children, a common assumption in we have made the fundamental assumption that fertility will continue a smooth
projections. The second assumes that the decline will continue to 1.85 children, decline to near the two-child average in states where it is now above that level.
near the level observed in states such as Kerala. The first scenario results in an Should that assumption prove true, we must also consider the question of how low
India of two billion population while the second falls short of that mark and results future fertility might be.
in eventual population decline. Is an India of two billion population a possibility? In this exercise, we have
We hope that this exercise forms the basis for useful discussion and looked at how such an event might come about and have drawn two potential
consideration of what challenges might lie ahead and how those challenges might portraits of India’s population future.
be addressed.
A. R. Nanda Carl Haub
Executive Director Senior Demographer
Population Foundation of India Population Reference Bureau
1
5. THE FUTURE POPULATION OF INDIA
A LONG-RANGE DEMOGRAPHIC VIEW
India has made great strides in its official goal to slow population growth since the expectancy at birth and infant mortality), and migration into or out of an area. For India,
inception of its population programme in 1952. In 1950, women in India averaged assumptions made about future fertility trends are of the greatest importance. Mortality
about six children each in their lifetimes. Today, that average has dropped to about has declined to the point where life expectancy at birth nationwide has risen to 64
three. India stands at a unique point in her population history. Both the potential for a years. While mortality is likely to continue to improve, its contribution to future
continuation of a declining population growth rate and the certainty of adding many population size will be less important than fertility.
hundreds of millions to the population due to population momentum exist side-by-side. A fundamental principle for this project was to perform the projections with
It is now virtually certain that India will be the world’s largest country in population, consistency of method and clarity for all 35 states and Union territories. Thus, future
surpassing China. At independence, India’s population was 350 million. Today, it fertility trends were projected in the same way for all states, as detailed below. Some
stands at 1.1 billion. But how large might it become? Could India’s population reach exceptions were necessary in migration assumptions for “city-states,” such as
two billion, the only country likely to do so? Chandigarh and Delhi.
The purpose of this exercise is to provide glimpses into India’s long-term The projections were performed using the standard cohort-component method,
population future, projecting population from 2001 to 2101. Such a period is quite i.e., by projecting populations by sex and individual age groups. The FIVFIV projection
lengthy, but future population size is a direct result of demographic trends generations program, developed by the Population Council, was utilised.
before. While projections for a closer time period are more likely to prove accurate,
long-range consequences are necessarily obscured. Recognizing this fact, two Base Population
projection scenarios were prepared for this project in order to provide more than a The population of each state used as the starting point, or base population, for the
single possible outcome. The use of two scenarios also avoids the trap of an odd projections is that of the 2001 Census of India by five year age groups and sex. As in
number of projections. In that case, one will often be considered the “middle,” and, by the majority of developing countries, data by age and sex in India suffer from a number
implication, the most reasonable, while the other two possibilities, the higher and lower of deficiencies. For one, large numbers of people do not know their age, females
projection, will be ignored. A two-projection exercise requires us to consider the appear to be undercounted, and young children are under-represented. The youngest
assumptions that underlie each projection more seriously, a process that should age group, ages 0-4, is undercounted or partially omitted, as can be seen in the
always precede looking at the results. population pyramid for all-India in Figure 1.
A second purpose of this exercise is to project India’s population state-by-state,
summing to the national total, so that the consequences of differing future trends in
statewise fertility can be seen. The national average total fertility rate (TFR) hides a
wide spectrum of state-level differences. The TFR, or the average number of children
a woman would have in her lifetime at the birth rate of a given year, currently ranges
from 1.7 in Kerala to 4.3 in Bihar. Low-fertility states such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu
will contribute little to future population growth and are likely to decline in size. It is in
the higher fertility states, such as Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan,
Uttar Pradesh and others that the story of India’s future population size will be told.
By projecting population statewise, the effect of higher-fertility states on the national
growth rate can be taken into account as they grow larger in comparison to the low-
fertility states..
The Nature of Projections
Population projections are not true forecasts of future population, but scenarios that
result from the assumptions made when they are prepared. Assumptions must be
made about declines in the future birth rate (fertility), improvements in mortality (life
3
6. THE FUTURE POPULATION OF INDIA
A LONG-RANGE DEMOGRAPHIC VIEW
The first step in determining the base populations was to conduct an analysis of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the TFR was assumed to remain constant throughout the
the accuracy of age-sex reporting. Having done so, the standard demographic projection period.
technique is to “smooth” populations by age, removing as many anomalies as possible Having decided on the target values, it is then necessary to determine the path
from the published figures. For this and other procedures, the Population Analysis that the assumed fertility decline will take. Will it remain at a higher level and decline
Spreadsheets (PAS) developed by the U.S. Census Bureau were used. This process suddenly to a lower level? Will it decline only very gradually? As a low value, such as
produces a population age structure that more closely resembles the true situation, 2.1, is approached will the decline slow? Since the pattern of decline cannot be fully
but perfection will always remain elusive. The smoothed population of India is shown anticipated, a standard curve used in population projections was employed. The
in Figure 2. logistic curve has often been observed to give a useful approximation of how fertility
has declined worldwide. Once decline has begun, it often continues at some steady
pace, slowing as lower values are approached. This pattern has also been observed in
the low fertility states of India.
The U.S. Census Bureau software utilizes the past trend in a state’s fertility
decline pattern to project future decline along the logistic curve. Figures 3 and 4
illustrate this process for two states, Karnataka, a state with relatively low current
fertility, and Uttar Pradesh, a state with relatively higher fertility. The past trend in the
TFR was taken from India’s Sample Registration System (SRS), a data collection
Fertility Assumptions
A key concept in fertility is that of replacement level fertility. This is often referred to as
the “two-child norm.” When couples have but two children, they merely replace
themselves, not increasing the size of successive generations. When this replacement
level is reached, a population will eventually cease growing and enter a “zero-growth”
condition. A TFR of 2.1 is usually specified as the replacement level. This is 2.1 rather
than 2.0 since not all women survive to the end of their childbearing years so that
women who do must compensate and because, worldwide, there are 105 male babies
born for every 100 females, the normal sex ratio at birth. programme virtually unique among developing countries. Since the early 1970s, the
Two population scenarios, labeled A and B were prepared. These differ in only SRS has sampled millions of households each month to inquire about the number of
one respect, the “target” TFR, used as a final value. Scenario A, the higher of the births and deaths that had occurred. As a result, the SRS is able to produce estimates
two, makes the assumption that 2.1, the classic replacement level fertility value, will of India’s annual birth, death, infant mortality rates and TFRs as well as recurring sets
be the final value for states where it is currently above 2.1. In Scenario B, the target of life tables. In the case of the TFR, estimates are produced only for bigger states. For
is 1.85 for those states above that value. For states with very low TFRs, such as smaller states and Union territories, TFRs were estimated by reverse projection of
4
7. THE FUTURE POPULATION OF INDIA
A LONG-RANGE DEMOGRAPHIC VIEW
the projection process, the selection of a particular group of life tables was matched as
closely as possible to reported SRS infant mortality in each state. For smaller states
and Union territories, life tables were selected from those for the bigger states with
similar mortality levels.
The future impact of HIV/AIDS was not incorporated into the projections due to
the lack of useable information on statewise data such as AIDS death rates which
would be required. Population projections from the National Commission on Population
did incorporate HIV/AIDS at the national level and projected that the country’s
population would be 16 million less with HIV/AIDS than without in 2026. Since those
projections were performed, the National AIDS Control Organisation has lowered its
estimate of HIV prevalence from 0.9 to 0.36 percent of the population ages 15-49.
Users of the PFI/PRB projections may wish to take these factors into account.
Migration
Migration presents particular challenges in a population projection due to its often
unpredictable nature. Net migration figures for states are available from Indian
censuses and these were used as a basis for the projections. It was assumed that
smoothed 2001 Census populations and by matching the SRS crude birth rates (births
interstate migration would increase slowly in absolute terms from that observed for
per 1,000 population), which are produced for smaller states and Union territories.
1991-2001 from the 2001 Census and then slowly decrease, the latter a common
Sex Ratio at Birth assumption in projections. Significant adjustments had to be made to the migration
The sex ratio at birth, or the number of girl babies born per 100 males, has emerged assumptions for Chandigarh and Delhi, which would become impossibly large under
as a significant issue in India due to the practice of pre-birth sex selection and the the standard assumption. It was assumed that much migration to these areas would be
abortion of female fetuses. In recent years, the Indian government at the national and diverted to adjacent suburban areas such as Gurgaon in Haryana and Noida in Uttar
local level has introduced a variety of incentives and disincentives to curtail this illegal Pradesh. In these cases, in-migration into Haryana was increased and out-migration
practice. For the projections, it was assumed that the sex ratio at birth would return to from Uttar Pradesh decreased. Since the census cannot interview those who have left
a global normal value of 95 female births per 100 male births during the first 35 years India, an adjustment was made to reconcile state-level migration to an assumed
of the projection. national annual net emigration level of approximately –200,000. State-level migration
is an area which commands considerably more research and analysis.
Mortality
Life expectancy at birth in India ranged from 57 years in Madhya Pradesh to 74 years Results
in Kerala in 2002-2004. Similarly, infant mortality ranged from 14 infant deaths per Population projections are not forecasts, as stated earlier. They are scenarios of future
1,000 live births in Kerala to 76 in Madhya Pradesh in 2005. For the projections, life population size which result from the situation today and the assumptions made
expectancy was projected in the same manner as fertility, using a logistic curve and concerning future trends. Nonetheless, projections have value. There are, after all,
incorporating Registrar General life tables up to 1999-2003 as input values. Target some reasonable bounds to expectations. It is expected that fertility in the higher-
values of life expectancy were 85 years for males and 90 years for females, typical fertility states will decline as it has in other states. It is expected that life expectancy at
assumptions made in projections worldwide, although there is much debate on the birth will continue to improve. In the absence of a very sharp and unanticipated shifts
issue of just how long the human life span may ultimately be. For the projection, in mortality trends, it is future fertility trends that will determine India’s future
widely-used model life tables, Coale-Demeny Model Life Tables, provided the basis for population size.
projections of mortality. The model life tables themselves are available in four groups, It is useful to compare the results obtained in this exercise with results obtained by
each with varying levels of infant mortality for the same level of life expectancy. During other organizations. The 2006 National Commission on Population Projections
5
8. THE FUTURE POPULATION OF INDIA
A LONG-RANGE DEMOGRAPHIC VIEW
projected the population of India and bigger states to the year 2026. The 2026 It is interesting to note that some states of India may experience a new
projected population that resulted is 1.40 billion. This can be compared to the Scenario phenomenon, population decline. The populations of Kerala and Tamil Nadu would
A population of 1.46 billion and that of Scenario B, 1.45 billion. The United Nations begin to decline in the 2041-2051 period while those of Andhra Pradesh and West
Population Division (UNPD) also produces a projection of the total population of India Bengal would do so around 2061 under Scenario B. A second new development is
in three variants, low, medium and high. For 2025, these range from 1.37 to 1.55 substantial future ageing. By 2051, the population ages 65+ would exceed that ages
billion. The UNPD extends their projections to 2050 and those projections range from 0-14 by 2041 in Kerala and Tamil Nadu and that of India by 2091 in Scenario A and
1.39 to 1.96 billion compared to Scenario A’s 1.81 and Scenario B’s 1.74 billion in 2071 in Scenario B.
2050. A summary of the results is given in Table 1 and shown graphically in Figure 5. Which scenario is more likely? Different users will have different opinions as to
Table 1. Projected Population of India, Two Scenarios (millions) the appropriateness of the scenarios as they apply to each state. Some, for example,
2001 2026 2051 2101
may feel Scenario A appropriate for Bihar, but not Uttar Pradesh. Over such a long
period, many different events may influence population trends. States with low fertility
Scenario A 1,029 1,464 1,825 2,181
today may become concerned about population ageing and decline and encourage
Scenario B 1,029 1,449 1,751 1,853 more births. Such a turnaround may seem unlikely today, yet precisely this has
happened in some countries of Asia which once advocated lower birth rates.
Scenario A, with a final TFR of 2.1 for higher fertility states, results in a Pressure on the availability of agricultural land may cause accelerated migration to
population that does, in fact, reach two billion, a milestone that would occur in 2066- urban areas and result in faster fertility decline. Perhaps, continuing son preference
2071. By the end of the projection period, in 2101, four states, today’s Bihar, Madhya will act to keep fertility somewhat higher. And it may simply be that a TFR as low as
Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh would account for almost half of the country’s 2.1 may never be reached in some states. If, for example, fertility declined in Uttar
population. Scenario B, with a final TFR of 1.85, does not reach two billion. Under Pradesh, not to 2.1, but to 2.5, its population in 2101 would reach 653 million, not
Scenario B, growth peaks in 2081-2086, after which it begins a period of population 480, as in Scenario A. While long-range projections necessarily require long-range
decrease. Statewise detail is provided in the tables. assumptions, their value is that they can quantify the consequences of future
demographic trends that could not otherwise be foreseen.
6
19. For additional copies of this publication, free of charge, please contact the Population
Foundation of India at the address below.
Population Foundation of India
B-28, Qutab Institutional Area, Tara Crescent, New Delhi 110 016
Telephone: 91-11-42899770 Fax: 91-11-42899795 e-mail: popfound@sify.com
www.popfound.org
Population Reference Bureau
1875 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 520, Washington, DC 20009
Telephone: (202) 483-1100 Fax: (202) 328-3937 e-mail: popref@prb.org
www.prb.org
Printed in India at Ajanta Offset & Packagings Ltd., Delhi. August 2007.
