India’s population to reach 1.52 billion in just over a decade driven by ageing boom

India’s population is expected to reach 1.52 billion in over a decade with a likely boom in ageing, a government study found.

The population of India is expected to grow by 100 million by 2036 from the existing 1.4 billion, according to the ‘Women and Men in India’ report released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation on Monday.

The report also projects a higher proportion of individuals aged 60 and above during this period, while a decline in individuals under 15 years of age as compared with the 2011 census.

The findings pin the fall in the size of the younger population to a declining fertility rate. However, the country will see a better sex ratio, with an increase from 943 women per 1,000 men to 952 women by 2036.

Though India’s working-age population is projected to rise until 2036, the report does shine the light on the nature of decline it would see afterwards.

It indicates that while 60.7 per cent of India’s population fell within the working range of 15-59 years in 2011, this percentage is expected to increase to 64.9 per cent by the year 2036.

Experts have emphasised on strengthening India’s healthcare system. Attention is required for age-related diseases such as those caused by an inevitable biological decline such as cataract and macular degeneration that affect eyesight, said Dr AB Dey, a geriatrics specialist and head of the geriatrics department at the All India Institute of Medical Science.

“Older people commonly present to the health system with cognitive decline, frail health, increased risk of infection, heart attack, stroke, cancer, visual impairment, deafness, depression,” he told IndiaSpend.

In April last year, the UN declared India to be the most populous country on the planet, projecting its population to reach 1.42 billion.

China “will soon cede its long-held status as the world’s most populous country”, it said.

In the long term, UN experts see China’s population shrinking by 109 million by 2050 – more than triple the decline of their previous forecast in 2019.

This will mean a shrinking labour force and a greater burden on healthcare and other social security costs.

“The young people have a great potential to contribute to the economy,” Poonam Muttreja, the executive director of non-profit Population Foundation of India, had told The New York Times.

“But for them to do that requires the country to make investments in not just education but health, nutrition and skilling for employability.”

The UN, in its World Population Prospects 2024 report, noted last month that India’s population “will have peaked in the early 2060s at about 1.7 billion and then decline by 12 per cent, but the country will remain the world’s most populous throughout the century”.

The report added that China’s population, which stood at 1.41 billion in 2024, will fall to 1.21 billion in the next three decade, and is expected to lose more than half of its current population to return to what it was in 1950s.