(Transcript from World News Australia)
The United Nations has predicted that India will overtake China as the world's most populous country in less than a decade.
It's one of the main findings of a major report on world population trends.
Van Nguyen has the details.
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The world's two largest nations, China and India, already have well over one-billion people each.
At present, China has more people than India.
But the UN report, World Population Prospects, says they're likely to switch places by 2022 - six years earlier than previously forecast.
Fast-growing Nigeria is set to overtake the United States as the country with the third largest population, though that will take a little longer.
Head of the UN Population Division, John Wilmoth, says the world's population will be approaching 10 billion by mid-century.
"In 2015, the world has around 7.3 billion inhabitants. We have added 1 billion people since 2003 and 3 billion since 1990. By the year 2030 we expect that the world will have 8.9 billion people and 9.7 billion in 2050."
The UN report emphasises that population growth is not even across the world.
In fact, it projects that almost 50 countries in Europe will experience shrinking populations in coming years.
Several countries - including Romania, Serbia and Ukraine - are expected to see their populations decline by more than 15 per cent by 2050.
John Wilmoth says most population growth will happen in developing regions, particularly in Africa.
"Currently the average woman is having around two and a half children over her lifetime. But this number varies widely around the world Africa has the highest fertility level with around 4.7 children per woman. Even assuming a continued decline in fertility, given this high starting point we anticipate a continued rapid growth of the African population, which will roughly double in size between now and 2050."
Ten African countries are projected to increase their populations five-fold or more by the end of this century.
John Wilmoth says the concentration of growth in the poorest countries will make it harder to eradicate poverty, combat hunger and expand schooling and health systems.
But he believes a productive generation of young people could help ease the problems.
"As the current generation of young people transforms into a productive and relatively large population in the working age range, there is a prospect for rapid economic growth that can help lift population poverty and into a more prosperous future."
Ena Singh is the Assistant Representative of the UN Population Fund in India.
She's told UN TV, improving access to contraception will help to slow the rate of India's population growth.
"A lot of our work in India is addressed to providing good quality, temporary, contraceptive methods to people so that when they want them they can have them. There has to be a range of contraceptive services, including female and male sterilization."
Another component of population change highlighted in the UN report is international migration since the end of the Second World War.
It cites the example of the large numbers of refugees who have recently fled from the conflict in Syria as an example of the major population movements that could be expected in the future.
Head of the UN Population Division John Wilmoth suggests governments must have policies to properly manage migration movements.
"It's quite notable that for some countries of the world, migration has become one of the most important components of population change and it's very important that governments think about policies these days that will provide effective governance of those flows of people into and out of their countries."
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