East Asia and Pacific region South Asia region population projections 1992-93 edition

Population projections for all countries are prepared annually by the Bank's Population and Human Resources Department. They are published first in summary form in the Bank's World Development Report and later in greater detail as technical notes or working papers and, in alternate years, as a book. Separate papers cover the six Bank regions: (1) Africa (sub-Saharan); (2) Latin American and the Caribbean (and Northern America); (3) East Asia and Pacific region and South Asia region combined; and (4) Europe and Central Asia region and Middle East and North Africa region combined. Among trends observed: In Asia, most countries have begun the transition from high to low fertility, with declines in many countries starting before and during the 1970s. In East and Southeast Asia, fertility has already reached a low level of 2.5 children per woman. South Asia, at 4.1 children per woman, has progressed less far in this process, and Southwest Asia has still further to go. But each subregion of the Asian continent includes countries at different stages of the fertility transition: each subregion has at least one country with a total fertility rate of 6 or greater and one country with replacement-level fertility. The projections of when replacement fertility will be reached in the region as a whole are determined by the trends in individual countries with the slowest decline; the Asian subregion aggregates will therefore be late in achieving this. South Asia has the worst mortality conditions of the Asian subregions, but improvement has been quite rapid since the mid-1970s, with life expectancy increasing from 49 to 59 years currently. Life expectancy in Southwest Asia is near the world's average, while it is well above that in East and Southeast Asia at 70 years. East and Southeast Asia contains some of the countries (Japan and Hong Kong) with the highest measured life expectancies in the world. The most populous country in the world is China, with a population of 1.2 billion. Its population growth rate, 1.5 percent in the early 1990s, is low for a low-income country and is due to the low level of fertility achieved in the last two decades. India, the second most populous country, has an estimated population of 883 million in 1992. Because of its higher total fertility rate, it is growing faster than China - 2.0 percent a year - despite higher mortality. The population of India is projected to surpass the 1 billion mark in the year 2000 and to surpass China in total population by 2120.