World population prospects: the 2015 revision
Despite a continuing slowdown in the rate of population growth, it is “almost inevitable” that the number of people on the planet will rise from 7.3 billion today to 9.7 billion in 2050, according to the latest UN projections. Ten years ago, the world population was growing by 1.24% annually; today, the percentage has dropped to 1.18% – or roughly another 83 million people a year. The overall growth rate, which peaked in the late 1960s, has been falling steadily since the 1970s. The UN report attributes the slowdown to the near-global decline in fertility rates – measured as the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime – even in Africa, where the rates remain the highest. However, that fall is being offset by countries in which populations are already large, or where high numbers of children are born. According to the study, nine countries will account for half the world’s population growth between now and 2050: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, the US, Indonesia and Uganda. Continued population growth until 2050 is almost inevitable, even if the decline of fertility accelerates, says the report, World Population Prospects: the 2015 revision. There is an 80% probability that the population of the world will be between 8.4 and 8.6 billion in 2030, between 9.4 and 10 billion in 2050 and between 10 and 12.5 billion in 2100.