Good morning and Selamat Hari Raya!
This is the first year in human history with more than 8 billion of us living on the planet.
Insight examines what it means to have more people on earth than ever, with a trek across three Asian countries – India, China and the Philippines.
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By most estimates, India has overtaken China as the world’s most populous nation. More than half its people are under the age of 30. Aging countries might envy these numbers, but the situation is a mixed bag for the sub-continent.
Producer Tamal Mukherjee visited the palatial home of a startup founder, and then the slums in Agra, where he encountered abject poverty like he “has never seen before”.
His experience captures India’s demographic dilemma – 1.4 billion pairs of working hands come with 1.4 billion hungry mouths. A growing population represents both potential and problem.
China is headed in the other direction – its population declined for the first time last year. Yet unlike other aging nations, Beijing has not made migration a core part of its population strategy. Why not?
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In trying to answer this question, producer Genevieve Woo discovers a community in China that doesn’t get a lot of attention – half a million African migrants. Do they find welcome in an almost homogenous society?
Last year, the Philippines – long a case-study for the ills of overpopulation – recorded its lowest fertility rate in seven decades. We visit the “baby factory of the Philippines” and the “world’s most crowded prison”, to understand why the Archipelago made population planning a national priority.
Almost 40% of all people on earth live in these three Asian countries; how they deal with their population puzzles will impact us all.
Daniel Heng
Executive Producer, Insight
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