A World Inequality Lab study suggests India could surpass China in share of global GDP in PPP terms by around 2060 under a convergence scenario. According to the report titled 'Global Justice Report: A Plan for Equality & Prosperity Within Planetary Boundaries', China currently accounts for about one-fifth of world GDP in PPP terms, but its share may decline through the second half of the century as demographic trends reduce its proportion of the global population. The study notes that China's population share is falling very fast, from 23 per cent of the world population in 1945 to about 17 per cent in 2025 and less than 8 per cent in 2100. India's share in world GDP is currently about 8 per cent in PPP terms (4 per cent in market exchange rate) and is scheduled to increase to 16 per cent by 2100, according to the benchmark projections by World Inequality Lab.
The report notes that China's population share is falling very fast, from 23 per cent of the world population in 1945 to about 17 per cent in 2025 and less than 8 per cent in 2100. India's share in world GDP is currently about 8 per cent in PPP terms (4 per cent in market exchange rate) and is scheduled to increase to 16 per cent by 2100, according to the benchmark projections by World Inequality Lab. In contrast, China's share in world GDP is currently about 20 per cent in PPP terms and 17 per cent in market exchange rate, scheduled to decline to 7 per cent by 2100. The study emphasizes that China's share in world GDP is projected to stabilize and decline in the second half of the 21st century, and to be overtaken by India around 2060.
The shift would mark a broader transition towards a more multipolar global economy, as reported by the World Inequality Lab. Unlike earlier periods dominated by a single economic power, neither China nor any other country is expected to command the share of global output once enjoyed by Europe in the early twentieth century or by the United States after World War II. The findings were part of the report's 'Sustainable Convergence Scenario', which modelled a pathway under which countries gradually narrow income gaps while remaining within climate limits. The report emphasizes that the world is set to be multipolar in the 21st century, unlike the worlds of the 19th and 20th centuries, with neither China nor any other country expected to reach the hegemonic positions that the US had in the 1950s or Europe had around 1900-1910.
The report compared the development trajectories of India and China in recent decades, noting that while both economies expanded rapidly following market-oriented reforms, India recorded higher levels of inequality alongside lower productivity growth than China. As reported by the World Inequality Lab, it is striking that India has much more inequality than China but much lower productivity growth, which can be explained by larger and better-targeted human capital expenditure in China. The study estimated that improvements in education and health could account for between 50 per cent and 70 per cent of productivity convergence in South and South-East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The report also notes that China is very unlikely to ever reach the kind of hegemonic position which the US had in the world around 1950 (with as much as 35-40% of the world's GDP) or which Europe had around 1900-1910 (around 40-45% of the world's GDP).
The report called for a significant expansion in social-sector spending globally, with the scenario assuming the share of labour devoted to education and health care should rise from 11 per cent currently to 43 per cent by 2100, while expenditure on the two sectors should increase from about 13 per cent of world GDP to 38 per cent. For South and South-East Asia, the scenario assumes annual per-capita income growth of around 3-4 per cent during the convergence process, enabling the region to narrow the gap with advanced economies over the course of the century. The report emphasizes that these democratic rules envisioned for the Global Justice Fund do stand in sharp contrast with the current plutocratic rules applied at the IMF and other international institutions, but notes that these rules are already deeply contested and inherently unstable.
