India, June 13 -- India would pip China as the world's most populated country in the world by 2028, says a United Nations population report released on Thursday. It would also have one of the worst sex ratios, the report said.

The report based on new fertility data says that India's population would increase till 2050, and then decline to be around 1.54 billion by the turn of the century. China would enter the downturn in population from 2025 onwards and would lose its top spot to India in 2028.

The elderly would be the reason for India's rising population with the fertility rate per woman expected to fall below 2 in 2050 to 1.84 by 2100. It would result in the proportion of the children below the age of 14 to fall by about 10 percentage points between 2013 and 2050.

The population will still rise as life expectancy would increase from 64.9 years in 2013 to 80.6 years in 2100 and would be just one percentage point below the global average. Now, it is four percentage points less than the world average of 67.1 years, the report says. The average age would also increase from 26.4 years in 2013 to 44.3 years by the end of the century hinting India will start losing its demographic dividend after 2025.

The report also shows that India has the worst sex ratio, behind only the Middle East. Presently, India has 107 men for every 100 women, a ratio worse than Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.



Published by HT Syndication with permission from Hindustan Times.