Indians to surpass Chinese

By He Xin

India will overtake China as the world's most populous country in 2025, influencing the structure of Asian economies, according to US Census Bureau forecasts.

The latest Census Bureau estimates released this week, which are in line with previous studies, predict that India will reach 1.4 billion people in 2025, surpassing China, whose population growth is more modest.

Since the 1973 introduction of the family-planning policy, China has stopped an additional population growth of 460 million, according to Ma Li, an expert at the China Population and Development Research Center.

According to AFP, the average Chinese woman now has 1.5 children in her lifetime, compared with 2.7 children for the average Indian woman. However, Indian fertility rates have also been slowing, due to rising education and urbanization.

The demographic shift could affect the Asian powers' economies, now among the fastest-growing in the world.

China has enjoyed a stronger growth rate than India as young people flock to manufacturing hubs that pump out exports for the world. However, in coming years, China will likely face a shrinking labor force and a mass of pensioners, AFP said.

"It is too early to say whether India will surpass China economically, as China is also gradually shifting its growth mode," Wan Jun, a researcher from the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

Wan indicated that, rather than depending on labor-intensive industries, China's economy is now more driven by capital and technology. Including the automobile and petrochemical industries, "more than half of the nation's top 10 industries are in a lower demand of labor."

"The so-called 'demographic dividend' won't disappear right away, and may last for another two decades," he said.

Statistics from the China Population and Development Research Center estimate the country's active workforce will decline to 990 million in 2025. This will make it still higher that India's 940 million, as predicted by the US Census Bureau.

Agencies contributed to this story