The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

India surpasses China—now world’s most populous country:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/india-china-population-economy-9dd7bf27

India’s population is expected to keep growing for the next four decades, peaking at nearly 1.7 billion in 2063. China’s population, which declined last year for the first time since famines in the 1960s…is projected to shrink rapidly.

…In many ways, India looks like China did 30 years ago. It has a rapidly expanding working-age population, with 610 million people under age 25, and relatively few older people to care for.

…China’s fertility rate, the number of children a woman has over her lifetime, was 1.18 last year—four decades after the country instituted its one-child policy. That’s well below the replacement rate of 2.1 needed to help keep the population stable. India’s is slightly lower than the replacement rate, at 2.0, but a large pool of women of childbearing age mean the population will keep growing for decades.

India’s economy, however, has a lot of catching up to do.