![]() ![]() ![]() This chart also shows how the United Nations envision the end of the global demographic transition. ![]() Just as expected by demographers, the world as a whole is experiencing the closing of a massive demographic transition. This slowdown of population growth was not only predictable but predicted. Since then the increase of the world population has slowed and today grows by 0.9% per year. Peak population growth was reached in 1963 with an annual growth of 2.3%. In pink, you see the annual population growth rate (that is, the percentage change in population per year) of the global population. 1 The difference is the number of people that we add to the world population in a year: 76 million. Population growth is still fast: every year, 134 million are born, and 58 million die. Yes, I expect new generations to contribute, but for now, it is upon us to provide for them. We should not make the mistake of underestimating the task ahead of us. To provide space, food, and resources for a large world population in a way that is sustainable into the distant future is without question one of the large, serious challenges for our generation. The 7-fold increase of the world population over the course of two centuries amplified humanity’s impact on the natural environment. This also means that your existence is a tiny part of the reason why that curve is so steep. As we see in the chart, the rise of the global population got steeper and steeper and you have just lived through the steepest increase of that curve. Particularly over the course of the 20th century: Over the last 100 years global population more than quadrupled. Once health improved and mortality declined things changed quickly. The world was in the first stage of the demographic transition. In the many millennia up to that point in history very high mortality of children counteracted high fertility. This visualization presents an overview of the global demographic transition, based on estimates from the 2022 data release from the UN Population Division.Īs we explore at the beginning of the entry on population growth, the global population grew only very slowly up to 1700 – only 0.04% per year. For many countries, the demographic transition has already ended, and as the global fertility rate has now halved we know that the world as a whole is approaching the end of rapid population growth. One of the big lessons from the demographic history of countries is that periods of rapid population growth are temporary. While the UN projects an almost 3-fold increase of the population of Africa, other researchers find a much smaller increase more likely. The biggest disagreement between different projections is concerning the future of Africa.Rapid progress in getting children – and especially girls – into schools will result in a much smaller global population. The demographers of WC-IIASA model what will happen according to different scenarios and make clear that the population growth rate tomorrow depends on what we do today. While the UN projections are most widely known, there are other very-carefully-produced projections.The UN projections for the global population growth rates, which have been produced since the 1950s, have a good track record in projecting the size of the global population.The global population growth rate has already slowed down considerably: it reached its peak at over 2% in the 1960s and has been falling since.The countervailing trend is falling fertility rates – the trend of couples having fewer children is what brought rapid population growth to an end in many countries already, and what will bring an end to rapid population growth globally. Improving health is increasing the size of the population as it is decreasing mortality. Global population growth is determined by the number of births and deaths.While in some regions the world population will likely grow rapidly for the coming decades, other regions will continue to see declining population numbers. Beneath the global level, there are of course big differences between different world regions and countries.By that time, the UN projects, fast global population growth will come to an end. The UN projects that the global population will increase from a population of around 8 billion in 2022 to 10.4 billion by the end of the century. ![]()
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