India\'s Population Challenges the United Nations (UN)

India's Population Challenges

The United Nations (UN) reports that the world's population stood at about 6.5 billion in 2005, and is growing at about 1.2% each year. The UN projects that by 2050 there will be 9.1 billion people populating the planet, which as a stand-alone statistic is somewhat frightening, given that rapid growth is expected "in a group of 50 countries classified as the lease developed" (UN, 2005, p. 1). Between the years 2000 and 2005, about 76 million persons were added to the world's population each year, and India was responsible for 22% of that population growth (China added 11%). Indeed India is expected to overtake China "as the most populous country in the world by 2030" (UN). India added about 16.5 million people per year in the 2000-2005 period, while China adds only about 8.4 million people per year in that same window of time, the UN reports. What are the problems India faces that are associated with its fast-growing population? This paper reviews those problems and issues through the available literature.

The Literature on India and its Population Explosion

An article in the International Conference on Mathematical Biology (Thukral, et al., 2008) reports that due to India's "…fast depleting resources" it is "mandatory" that India begin to bring its exploding population under control. A better standard of living for the estimated 1,155,347,700 individuals living in India (World Bank, 2009, www.google.com/publicdata).

can only be achieved if population growth is brought under control, Thukral writes (p. 137).

This strategy will require "regulating the instantaneous specific growth rate through rigorous family planning measures," Thukral continues (138). The authors explain that it is "disturbing" to realize that the gender ratio in India has declined from 972 females to 1000 males in 1990 to a ratio of only 933 females to 1000 males in 2001; more males means more babies born. What has been responsible for this decline in females vs. males? "The preference for the male child in India" is the answer, Thukral explains on page 140. The trend now needs to be towards more women than men, "for a balanced social development," Thukral continues (140).

Is this a new problem for India? Clearly it is not a new problem. Indeed, writing in Acta Sociologica in 1976 Maja Naur explains that on August 15, 1974, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi announced to her people that "India had a serious overpopulation problem" (Naur, 1976, p. 140). Naur reports on how India was dealing with its explosive population in the 1970s. Over the previous 20 years, Naur explains, India has had family planning programs and Family Planning Ministers. India spent over a million dollars on a marketing campaign for condoms, Naur points out. Also, when men agreed to be sterilized, they were given gifts like transistor radios, saris, and money. If a sterilized man could coax a male friend to also get a vasectomy -- depending on how many men he could bring to the clinics -- he was rewarded with a bicycle, or an umbrella, or a "clockwatch" (Naur, 141).

Obviously these gimmicks have not worked the way they were intended to work. Even though the Indian government put on festivals -- where up to 223,000 men were given vasectomies -- and gave money to the men, which ultimately led to the sterilization of 11 million men in the 1970s, it has not resulted in a marked reduction in births, Naur explains on page 142.

Eight years before Naur's article was published, Foreign Affairs reported that India's population was growing at a rate of 21 million births a year. Writer S. Chandrasekhar explained that the "major cause" behind the explosive birth rate at that time was that "major communicable disease like cholera, malaria and smallpox have been nearly brought under control." The good news in that genre was that life expectancy for Indians improved from 32 years in 1950, to 51 years in 1968 (Chandrasekhar, 1968, p. 1).

Is the rise in the economy of India making the population situation better or worse? An article in the Asia News Network reports that while 26 million babies are born annually in India, putting a strain on educational systems, the good news is "…the large number of young people will likely also bring greater growth to the economy" (Ganapathy, 2011). A PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report published in January, 2011 concludes that India could become "the fastest-growing economy in the world by 2050" (Ganapathy, p. 2). The PwC research expects that India's economy will overtake China's in the next ten years. But in order for India to sustain its economic growth, Ganapathy's story continues, the government must provide the education and training for its young people to become entrepreneurs. Currently, according to a recent Indian government survey, of the 459 million Indians between 13 and 35, one hundred and twenty six million are illiterate.

What is India doing now about population control? The Web site hosting India's National Commission on Population makes a serious of generalizations and claims regarding population issues. The site mentions that in 1952, India became the first country in the world to embark on a national effort to stabilize the population; it claims that there was a drop in birth rates after that, but it doesn't spell out the ramifications of its continuing explosive birth rate. A half a century after that national effort in 1952, India claims it has: a) reduced "crude birth rate (CBR) from 40.8 [per 1,000 people] (1951) to 26.4 (1998); b) cut in half infant mortality (from 146 per 1000 in 1951 to 72 per 1000 in 1999); c) reduced "total fertility rate" from 6 in 1951 to 3.3 in 1997; and d) achieved "nearly universal awareness of the need for and methods of family planning…"