The world is going through a serious demographic change that was foreseen but not to the extent that it is taking place. India and Pakistan population has been a big issue for both countries. Pakistan is a smaller country as compared to India, approximately 881,913 sq. km while India is approximately 3,287,263 sq. km, making India 413% larger than Pakistan. The same goes for the problem, in India, it is a bigger issue as the country would soon cross the population of China (the most populated country).
India Population
India is ranked second in terms of population. According to 2021 revision, India’s population had increased to 1.39 billion. Every two weeks, it adds roughly 1 million people to its population. Nearly 17.7 per cent of the world’s population lives in India. By 2030, it is projected to have more than 1.5 billion people, and by 2050, that number is projected to rise to 1.7 billion.
According to the technical committee, India’s population will rise from 1.21 billion in 2011 to 1.52 billion in 2026, a rise of 25.7% in 25 years at a rate of 1% annually. 1,000,000 people in India are Anglo-Indians and 700,000 United States citizens are living in India. They represent over 0.1% of the total population of India. In India, more than 50% of its population is below the age of 25 and more than 66% are under the age of 35.
The average age of an Indian, in 2022, is 28.7 years old. The death rate is 7.21 per 1000 people, in contrast. Despite the falling fertility rate, the birth rate in India is much higher. But in comparison to other countries, it is still quite a bit more. Moreover, 69.42 years are their life expectancy. The underlying causes of this static population size (an abnormally high death rate, for instance) were the same as those that restricted population expansion elsewhere in the world during the pre-industrial stage.
The majority of Indians would find life intolerable if the current rate of growth continued; medical services would be difficult to provide, housing, education, and other costs would be ridiculously expensive, technical and professional education would become the exclusive domain of the elite, and food scarcity would force more than half of the country into poverty. Without a doubt, India needs to implement some serious population-control initiatives. Even though, women are having fewer children than before in the majority of states, the growth curve is yet to be flattened, therefore decreasing it is necessary.
A government family programme was first implemented in India. There is no doubt that better educational levels and increasing the marriage age will lower the average number of children per family.
Poverty is another cause of the population’s rapid growth. The belief among most of the families living in poverty is that the larger the family, the greater the opportunity for income generation. Some believe that more children are needed in order to care for them after they age. Also, sons provide the majority of the family’s income in India. This archaic idea puts a lot of pressure on the parents to have children until they have a male child.
As a consequence, the unemployment rate is showing an increasing trend. The costs of producing food have increased due to the inability of food production and distribution to catch up with the growing population. A growing population also results in an unequal distribution of income and widening country inequality. However, population growth leads to economic growth with more people able to produce more goods. Increased labour availability and low labour costs result in a significant increase in employment since businesses are more willing to use the inexpensive labour.
Pakistan Population
The total population of Pakistan in 2021, was about 225 million based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data. For a population of over 220 million, this is a growth of about 5.28 million people per year. The population of Pakistan contributes to 2.83 percent of the total world population, which conceivably equals to one resident of the country for every 39 individuals on the planet. The population of Pakistan is expected to eventually double from what it is was 2001, in around 35 years, if the growth continues this way.
Year after year, Pakistan’s population will increase. According to estimates, there will be 262.96 million people living in Pakistan by 2030, and that figure would increase to 338.01 million by 2050 and 403.10 million by 2100. In Pakistan, according to UN’s reports, only 42% of births were formally registered in February 2021, making it one of the most populated nations in the world where more than half of the births remained unregistered. With 140 million people, it is currently the world’s seventh largest country and will become the third biggest contributor to world population growth.
The country has a relatively high, although declining, growth rate supported by high birth rates and low death rates. Rapidly increasing people are migrating to the urban areas as a result of pressure from the rising population. Over half of Pakistan’s population resides in the Punjab province where it is distributed unevenly. On the other hand, Baluchistan is Pakistan’s largest province but it has the least number of inhabitants.
The majority of the population lives in rural areas, although there are two large, rapidly expanding megacities: Karachi on the coast and Lahore in eastern Punjab. As a result, with a rapidly increasing population and low economic growth rate, the country faces a catastrophic situation. Pakistan continues to grow by four million each year despite spending millions of dollars, and using multiple resources.
Family planning debates now include religious controversies regarding the place of women in society. The organized religious political parties publicly reject the population programs and still think that family planning is against Islam therefore, undermining political support for family planning issues.
Each year, more people are added to its population. Women find it more challenging to obtain social services, like family planning, because of the practice of purdah (public view while wearing a veil). In addition, a preference for sons over daughters for the labour force and security in old age, results in higher fertility rates. Differences in desired family sizes are aggravated by poor communication between spouses. One third of the women who thought their husbands disapproved were mistaken; in reality, their husbands actually favoured family planning.
On the positive side, in terms of per capita carbon footprint, areas with a high population density are considerably more effective than rural areas and places with a low population. Population growth will result in the economic growth by increased human capacity to produce more goods. As a result, tax revenues will be increased, which can be used to find public services like environmental and healthcare projects.
Conclusion of India and Pakistan Population
To conclude, the rapid growth in India and Pakistan population has been a serious issue for decades. Both governments should generously fund family planning programs to curb the problem. They should make modern contraception legal, free and available everywhere, even in remote areas. Also, they should educate every person regarding the need to do family planning.