How do you count 1.4 billion people?
What to expect from India's next census
I’ve enjoyed some time off this summer and hope others have as well! This week I concentrated on a country I’ve been doubling down to learn more about (I’ve often focused on East Asia). If you have additional resources or want to chat, please leave a comment below so we can continue the conversation. Thanks!
How do you count 1.4 billion people?
No, smarty pants, the answer is not “one at a time,” it’s “electronically.” At least, that’s the strategy India’s government is using for its next decennial census, due to be completed by 2024.
This push for digitalization is new for India’s census but not new in other sectors. You may remember fairly recent pushes for biometric identification across India, meant to replace separate ID cards carried in wallets. This system, called Aadhaar and launched in 2009, was one of three development pillars, nicknamed JAM (Jan Dhan or financial inclusion; Aadhaar; and mobile connections). It’s the success of the latter that has paved the way for a digital census. Only 17 out of every 100 Indians had a mobile phone subscription in 2007, but by 2016 the number jumped to 85 out of 100. Now, the government expects that 50% of India’s population will be able to complete the e-Census via their mobile phones.
India has been conducting a full census for over 130 years, first taking place under the British, but with partial counts well before that.
India’s population has undergone tremendous changes since that first census. For one, it’s almost four times larger than the 361 million counted just after Partition in the 1951 census. But there are many other changes and more to come. The most astounding: Paul Ehrlich wrote his famous (and problematic) tome about overpopulation after a visit to India in the mid-1960s—yet today their total fertility rate is just below replacement, at 2 children per woman on average. Only 5 states have a fertility rate above 2, and the highest is Bihar at just under 3. This graph from the Times of India shows how pervasive the fertility declines are.
As is the case in most countries, fertility rates are higher among women with less schooling, so India’s fertility would drop even further if education expands. In fact, the average number of children Indian women say they want is just 1.6, and it’s as low as 0.9 in the state of Sikkim (the lowest).
Here are a few more changes India’s next census will likely show:
1. Overall population growth: Between now and 2050, India will add almost the equivalent of the US population, that’s roughly 1 million people a month. Most estimates have been that India will surpass China as the world’s most populous country by 2030 but my money’s on sooner rather than later. PRB estimated China’s mid-2021 population at 1.412 billion and India’s at 1.393 and China’s depopulation was the subject of a recent newsletter. India’s growth comes from “population momentum,” which is the tendency of a population to keep growing even if fertility falls because the size of childbearing cohorts is relatively larger from when fertility was higher (more potential mothers).
2. Millions of “missing women”: Sons remain more highly valued than daughters in India, and India’s skewed sex ratio is proof. The 2011 Census showed just 913 females per 1000 males, worse than the 2001 ratio of 927:1000. In the previous census Haryana’s child sex ratio was 834:1000 and Punjab’s was 846:1000 (both northern states). But, even in Kerala the ratio was 964. The ratio is abysmal in some states, and likely still will be in this Census. Son preference is still overwhelming, according to recent surveys, and with Indian women desiring a lower number of children overall, the pressure to ensure that their one child (or one of their two children) is a boy could mean even more missing women than the last census showed. For more on the drivers of India’s skewed sex ratio you can check out this study.
3. Steadily-growing cities but no spike in urbanization: Delhi has been one of the world’s fastest growing cities, but on the whole India’s urbanization has lagged what we would have expected for India’s position in the global economy and security architecture. The UN places India’s urbanization at only 33%—China’s urbanization, in contrast, is 65%. Urbanization has historically been a key indicator of economic potential because it concentrates services, ideas, and jobs, so India’s low urbanization places a ceiling on their economic growth. Indian cities are growing, just slowly. Using recent urban data, one spatial modeling study projected five key Indian cities to grow an average of 1.5 to 2 times in the next decade. India’s National Commission on Population expects to reach over 38% by the middle of next decade, but that’s still quite low. So, India has high urban growth potential, but is far behind the curve.
Obviously you can't count everyone in India. And as for China, they have millions upon millions of undocumented people- this is the result of their one child policy, in which parents secretly had children and then had to hide their existence from the government. Part of the reason why this is not only a world of 8 billion. This is a world of over 9.25 billion.