People in Mumbai: Demography of the Megacity

Alka Dev, CUNY Institute for Demographic Research (CIDR)

India has one of the largest and fastest growing urban populations in the world. By 2030, India will have over 68 million-plus cities and two of the five largest cities in the world, including the city of Mumbai, India’s financial powerhouse. By this time, Mumbai is expected to have a gross domestic product that will surpass some countries. Considering Mumbai’s importance to the Indian (and global) economy, very little is known about its demographic context. In this paper, I pool together data from several city and national sources to project the population of Mumbai from 2001 to 2011, both of which are Indian census years. Provisional data from the 2011 census allow for the estimation of errors. The paper discusses issues of data access, quality, and reliability. Recommendations are made to improve data collection and reporting mechanisms within the municipal government as well as for use by other researchers.