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China just reached a historic demographic milestone – the vast country now has more people living in cities than in the countryside.
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The Chinese National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) stated that about 691-million people – or 51.3 percent of the nation’s total population -- are now city-dwellers, versus 657-million people living in the rural regions.
The data underscores the massive shift in China's economy and society over the past two decades as millions of rural migrant workers abandoned their farms to flock to large cities in search of plentiful jobs. Without the participation of a huge army of cheap labor, China's economic emergence would likely not have occurred.
But what about India, China's principal rival in Asia and which is also acclaimed for its growing economic dominance?
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India's story is far different from China.
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According to the latest Indian census data, the vast majority of the nation's population remains in rural villages.
The latest survey indicates that 69 percent of India's population (some 833-million people) still live in rural areas.
Still, rural Indians are indeed migrating towards cities, but not at the same rate as their Chinese counterparts. In 2001 (during the last census study), 72 percent of Indians lived in the countryside.
Moreover, the urban population growth rate exceeds the rural rate for the first time in decades, suggesting the migration toward large cities is irreversible.
In addition, literacy rates are increasing significantly in both rural and urban areas of India. As of 2011, 68.9 percent of rural folk can read and write, versus 58.7 percent just ten years earlier. Among city-dwellers, 85.0 percent are now literate, up from 80 percent in 2001.
India is nonetheless behind China in this respect – according to UNICEF, literacy among Chinese adults runs at an impressive 94 percent. China also has a higher life expectancy (73 years versus 64 for India).
However, Sophie Mitra, assistant professor of economics at Fordham University in Bronx, NY, counters that the higher percentage of Chinese living in urban settlements does not necessarily mean that India is falling behind its giant neighbor economically.
“It is now well established that development is a broad process, involving improvements in different aspects of people's lives, and not only in terms of increased income” she said
“The United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) reflects a broader understanding of development by measuring achievements in income as well as health and education. A country could be mostly urban and yet score low on the HDI. This is for instance the case of Gabon in Africa.”
