Population is a more serious issue than generally construed. The managing of populations can become a serious inflection point as can be seen building up in the recent Rohingya crisis in Myanmar. Frequently, discrimination against communities have been placed in religious and ethnic terms, which can be site-specific.
However, Saskia Sassen, professor of sociology at Columbia University, US, places the context of the current turmoil on a more fundamental concept – land.
Sassen says that recent developments point towards a new trajectory in Myanmar’s interaction with its internally much-despised minority population. The Myanmar government decided in 2016 to allocate 3 million acres of rural land in Rakhine as sites for economic development and international investment, with the military having de facto control over these lands. Before this deal, Rakhine was largely ignored as an underdeveloped, and poverty-stricken part of Myanmar, with a significant population of resident Rohingya.
Living mostly in coastal areas, what triggered the Myanmar government’s violent expulsion of Rohingyas could be plans for the development of a 73 billion USD deep-sea port at Kyaukpyu in coastal Rakhine by a Chinese consortium along with plans for an industrial park estimated at about 3.2 billion USD nearby.
Sassen says that freeing the land through the violent expulsion of the Rohingya population might have been the solution in a country where land allocation is controlled by the military.
Rakine is one of the poorest regions of Myanmar. Governments in neighbouring countries are tasked with balancing national interest with human rights. With many nations in a quandary over whether and to what degree to house Rohingya populations, this forced displacement of Rohingyas is an example of how mass migrations can change population dynamics. In a time of global conflict, land claims and climate change, mass migrations might be more frequent than could be assumed.
The World’s Most Populated Nations
The race for the most populated nation in the world is presently a two-horse race between China and India, with countries like the US, Brazil, Nigeria, Indonesia, Pakistan and Russia in comparison a long way behind in terms of total population.
Although China is the world’s most populated country presently, according to an estimate by the United Nations (UN), the total population in India could overtake that of China by around 2024 (UN, 2017). The following is a list of the 10 most populated countries in the world presently, as compiled by the UN in its 2017 World Population Prospects revision –
| Rank | Country | Parent Continent | Population: July 1st, 2016 | Population: July 1st, 2017 | Change (in %) |
| 1 | China | Asia | 1,403,500,365 | 1,409,517,397 | +0.4 |
| 2 | India | Asia | 1,324,171,354 | 1,339,180,127 | +1.1 |
| 3 | United States of America | North America | 322,179,605 | 324,459,463 | +0.7 |
| 4 | Indonesia | Asia | 261,115,456 | 263,991,379 | +1.1 |
| 5 | Brazil | South America | 207,652,865 | 209,288,278 | +0.8 |
| 6 | Pakistan | Asia | 193,203,476 | 197,015,955 | +2.0 |
| 7 | Nigeria | Africa | 185,989,640 | 190,886,311 | +2.6 |
| 8 | Bangladesh | Asia | 162,951,560 | 164,669,751 | +1.1 |
| 9 | Russia | Europe/Asia | 143,964,513 | 143,989,754 | +0.0 |
| 10 | Mexico | North America | 127,540,423 | 129,163,276 | +1.3 |
| Total World Population | 7,466,964,280 | 7,550,262,101 | +1.1 |
Table 1: Top Ten Countries Globally in terms of Total Population by July 1st, 2017.
Source: World Population Prospects, 2017 – United Nations
Geographically the population varies a lot. A map depicting the main geographical region and the top 5 populated country is shown below:
Fig. 1: Population interpolated over various countries showing skewed distribution
Data from the UN in the 1950s showed that total world population at the time was about 2.5 billion. In present times, this number has risen to almost 7.5 billion. By 2050, the UN estimates that the total world population could rise to about 9.7 billion.
Sequential order of ever rising world population estimates is given in figure 2. By 2100 the estimate would touch the 11.2 billion mark.
Fig.2: World population estimates
Source: United Nations
Although presently, China is the world’s most populated nation, closely followed by India, with the top 10 list given above, there are indications that the list could look completely different by 2060. India, with a massive proportion of its population engaged in agricultural activities, and also with densely populated urban areas with high rural-to-urban migration, is expected to overtake China as the world’s most populated nation by 2024. India does not have as strict an implemented family planning regime as China, with its newly placed two-child policy, as opposed to the one-child policy regime of yesteryears.
With enforcement largely falling off the radar, India would need to radically alter its policies to curb its high population growth.
Nigeria, currently on 7th, has a high fertility rate and a huge young population, and based on current indicators, is expected to overtake the US is the world’s 3rdmost populous nation by 2060.
In Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo is expected to grow from 12 million people in 1950 to 237 million by 2060. Brazil and Japan (in 11th place) are however are in sharp contrast to the countries in the list, and are expected to witness a population decline in the coming decades.
By 2040, Russia is expected to not figure in the top 10 most populated countries list.
The high estimate of population in Africa by 2060 could be easily interpreted from its current situation. A glance at figure 3 clearly indicates how the population has increased over the past few decades.
Fig. 3: World population increase till 2015
Source: worldbank.org
What becomes an important variable is the ratio of the population that is young as compared to the ageing population. When the numbers of young people are in excess in a country, the country is likely to witness a huge rate of population increase in the coming years. There can be many other precipitant causes for this rise in the young population that can vary across nations, which is set to increase in many nations as one dominant factor – economic growth expands in many nations.
Between 2017 and 2050, 10 countries in particular are expected to house more than half of the world’s population. These countries include India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Congo, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, and the United States.
World’s densest regions
The current population density around the world reveals a clear picture of the densest regions. South east Asia is among the densest populated regions with parts India and China having density between 1000-1500 or greater than 1500 person per square kilometre. Other dense regions with the density ranging between 200 to 1000 per square kilometre include various parts of Africa, Europe, South America and North America.
Fig. 4: Population Density (2015)
The World’s Least Populated Nations
The same list featuring in the UN’s World Population Prospects revision of 2017 also features a list of the least populated countries in the world if one counts backwards from the bottom (UN, 2017) –
| Rank | Country | Parent Continent | Population: July 1st, 2016 | Population: July 1st, 2017 | Change(in %) |
| 1 | Vatican City | Europe | 801 | 792 | -1.1 |
| 2 | Tokelau | Oceania* | 1,282 | 1,300 | +1.4 |
| 3 | Niue | Oceania | 1,624 | 1,618 | -0.4 |
| 4 | Falkland Islands | South America | 2,910 | 2,910 | 0.0 |
| 5 | St. Helena | Africa | 4,035 | 4,049 | +0.3 |
| 6 | Montserrat | Carribbean | 5,152 | 5,177 | +0.5 |
| 7 | St. Pierre & Miquelon | North America | 6,305 | 6,320 | +0.2 |
| 8 | Tuvalu | Oceania | 11,097 | 11,192 | +0.9 |
| 9 | Nauru | Oceania | 11,347 | 11,359 | +0.1 |
| 10 | Wallis & Futuna | Oceania | 11,899 | 11,773 | -1.1 |
| Total World Population | 7,466,964,280 | 7,550,262,101 | +1.1 |
*Oceania here refers to countries that don’t come under major continents but are surrounded by sea water.
Fig: Top Ten Countries Globally in terms of Least Total Population by July 1st, 2017.
Source: World Population Prospects, 2017 – United Nations
The Vatican City in Europe, Christianity’s holy city, is the least populated city in the world, with 792 people by July 1st, 2017. Out of these over 450 have citizenship of the country, while the rest are people with permission to reside in the country. Many of Vatican City’s residents are people who live in different countries around the world as dictated by their occupational duties. The Vatican City is also the world’s smallest country in terms of area.
Like the Vatican, the Falkland Islands are also predominantly urban, with 81.1 per cent of the people living in urban areas. However, the total population density here is less than 1 per sq km. Immigration policies are tough here and people generally earn well, with modest commercial expansion. The problem in the Falkland Islands is growing a population to support the expansion of its economy. Other than the Vatican City and the Falkland Islands, most other countries in the top 10 are island nations where people predominantly live in rural settlements in villages.
Migration’s Impacts on Population
Migration implies the movement of populations from one location to another. Migration can be temporary or permanent, or it can be voluntary or forced, as in the case of the Rohingyas. Most legal migrations are usually voluntary, and a lot depends on the host country’s political climate and economic capacity.
Many states do not have strong welfare set-ups to support the immigration process, and can struggle with migration that creates problems both for the state along with its host community and the migrants themselves.
Migration tends to radically alter spatial and temporal aspects of the host location, with the first being a sudden alteration of the demographic profile of a location. In such a scenario a well thought out approach becomes necessary as immigration throws up often dynamically unpredictable effects. With the world moving towards an increasing overall population, migration is poised to become an important issue in the times to come.
Many departures among migrants can be involuntary or forced migrations, and can radically alter how population dynamics are distributed, especially in the case of mass migrations, such as those arising out of conflict or event. These forced migrations can occur due to a war and conflict, such as those from Syria in the ongoing Syrian conflict, where huge numbers of Syrians are migrating to other Middle-Eastern countries or to Western countries. Forced migrations can also occur out of natural disasters, such as in the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, which led many Haitians to attempt to immigrate to the US on boat.
In forced migrations, people are left with no choice but to migrate. Faced with the prospect of ethnic cleansing, many Rohingyas in Myanmar are feeling forced to migrate to neighbouring countries such as India and Bangladesh, where governments need to take conscientious stands on the issue, balancing both national interest and human rights.
In this international conventions on managing migration such as the International Migration Law (IML) must be utilized as a component of diplomatic negotiations to establish the rights of immigrants as well as establish frameworks for states in dealing with immigration. In an increasingly interconnected world, governments cannot function entirely in isolation, and must engage diplomatically with international arrangements.
Receive Daily Updates
Recent Posts
Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.