It's 2024 and new population forcasts are out for China and India, and it's worse for them than previously estimated last year, as it has been for every year they do these reports (they always overestimated their population).
Main focus here: China, India and Sub Sahara.
–China's population estimate for 2100 has reduced from 850m to 525m.
–India's population estimate for 2100 has reduced from 1500m to <999m. Additionally their fertility rate (TFR) has been overestimated and has been below replacement levels since 2017.
–SSA's population estimate for 2100 has reduced from 3780m to 3070m (710m reduction). I'd imagine this reduction will increase as birth control becomes more prevalent, Africans get into even more debt, and the ability to feed them becomes more difficult (hitting population ceilings).
All had tremendous reductions in 2100 estimates, however SSA had a reduction greater than the sum of the other two; which is interesting.
China:
The National Bureau of Statistics reports just 9.02 million births in 2023 – only half as many as in 2017. Set alongside China’s 11.1 million deaths in 2023, up 500,000 on 2022, it means China’s population shrank 2.08 million in 2023 after falling 850,000 in 2022. That’s a loss of about 3 million in two years.
The two consecutive declines are the first since the great famine of 1959-1961, and the trend is accelerating.
Updated projections from a research team at Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, one of the first to predict the 2022 turndown, have China’s population shrinking from its present 1.4 billion to just 525 million by 2100.
China’s working-age population is projected to fall to just 210 million by 2100 – a mere one-fifth of its peak in 2014.
https://www.vu.edu.au/about-vu/news-events/news/chinas-population-shrinks-again-and-is-set-to-more-than-halve
India:
The United Nations’ premature declaration that India has surpassed China as the world’s most populous country highlights the diminishing reliability of its population statistics. If its projections for other countries are also called into question, it will cease to be a credible source of insight into the world economy.
In April, the United Nations estimated that India had overtaken China as the world's most populous country. While the announcement received a great deal of media attention, India's 2024 census will likely reveal that
the UN's projections have been vastly overestimated
.
According to India's most recent census data, the country's population stood at 1.03 billion in 2001 and 1.21 billion in 2011. The UN's 2022 World Population Prospects (WPP) report, however, put these figures at 1.08 billion and 1.26 billion, respectively. Moreover,
India's National Family Health Survey indicated a fertility rate of 1.99 in 2017-19
, in contrast to the WPP's estimate of 2.16.
Fast-forward to the dawn of the twenty-second century, and
the numbers paint an even bleaker picture
. While the UN report estimates that India's population will reach 1.5 billion by 2100,
the country's population could actually fall below a billion
.
https://www.tbsnews.net/thoughts/china-and-india-have-fewer-people-un-thinks-637058
Sub Sahara:
The study projects a population for sub-Saharan Africa
by 2100 of 3·07 billion
(95% UI 2·4–3·84),
lower than the UNPD projection of 3·78 billion
, but still problematic.
https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(20)31522-1.pdf