0.1638
900 319 0030
x

Population, GDP and poverty

iasparliament Logo
January 16, 2019


What is the issue?

Experience at the global level shows that population growth, GDP growth and poverty reinforce one another.  

What does the population growth data reveal?

  • In the 2020s, India will overtake China’s population (at a time when the latter’s population will crest) and remain so to the end of the century.

  • This is because, from a higher rate of population growth than India’s in 1960s, China began to reduce it stringently.
  • From the beginning of the 1970s, China’s population growth rate fell below India’s and remained so thereafter.
  • Thus, even though India was on a steadily declining trend throughout, China’s population growth rate was crashed to below that of India and that difference in growth rates increased.
  • Only in the last few years, China’s population growth rate has picked up again as a deliberate policy, nevertheless remaining below India’s.

How does population growth link with GDP growth?

  • China’s per capita GDP growth remained significantly above that of India since 1960s.
  • But, in the last couple of years, India’s per capita GDP growth has crossed China.

  • This reflects China’s recent relaxation of its population policy (increase in population) after half-a-century of control.
  • Also, India’s steady increase in its GDP growth is witnessed along with the slowly declining population growth rate from the beginning of the 2000s.
  • This shows that population growth and per-capita GDP growth are closely associated at both the domestic and the global level.  

Can lower fertility rate lowers poverty?

  • Fertility rate is the average number of live births per woman.
  • Up to 2020, India’s rate of decrease in fertility parallels that of Brazil.
  • But because of India’s higher base fertility levels, there is higher population growth in India than Brazil now.  
  • China kept down its fertility rate, which remained much lower than both Brazil and India.
  • However, all three countries will have much lower fertility rates compared to the world average in the future.
  • Nevertheless, India’s base population being high, its population will reach at some 1.6 billion in the 2060s, serving as the highest populated country.
  • With that higher population, India will have challenges in income distribution and controlling poverty, since this could not represent a demographic dividend that India enjoys now.
  • Thus, these observations emerge from a comparison of Brazil, China and India shows that population, GDP and poverty are inter-linked.

 

Source: Business Standard

 

 

Login or Register to Post Comments
There are no reviews yet. Be the first one to review.

ARCHIVES

MONTH/YEARWISE ARCHIVES

Free UPSC Interview Guidance Programme