India: population and ages

In mid-1950 there were 346 million people, so the population is now 4.3 times as large.

The UN projects 23 million births and 9.89 million deaths in 2026, 13.1 million more births than deaths.

The UN projects the first year with more deaths than births in 2063.

The median age is 29.2, which is 1.9 years below the world’s 31.1.

24% of the people are under 15 and 7.5% are 65 or older (world: 24% and 11%).

The UN projects that people aged 65 and over will outnumber children under 15 from 2056.

Women have 1.9 children on average at today’s rates (world: 2.2), against 5.7 in 1950.

Life expectancy at birth is 72.7 years, below the world’s 73.8. In 1950 it was 41.2.

For mid-2050 the UN projects 1.68 billion people, 14% more than now, with a median age of 38.3.

By the death rates of 2023, life expectancy at birth was 72.0 years. People who had reached 65 could expect 16.1 more years for women and 14.8 for men.

On 1 January 2026, there are 10.9 people aged 65 or more for every 100 aged 15 to 64. For 2050, the UN projects 21.4.

For 2100 the UN projects a population of 1.51 billion, with a 95 percent prediction interval of 924 million to 2.3 billion.

Life expectancy at birth is a period measure. It sums up the death rates of one year and is not a forecast of how long the babies born that year will live.

In mid-2024, 4.8 million international migrants lived here, 0.3% of the population.

In mid-2024, 18.5 million people from here lived in other countries.