Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Anshul Vipat
In the last six decades, the global population has doubled from four billion to eight billion. Image source: IANS
The current population is more than three times higher than the 2.5 billion global headcount in 1950
The global population on Tuesday hit the eight billion mark on Tuesday, according to the United Nations. The eighth billionth child was born on Tuesday. The world population surpassed this mark only after 11 years of passing the seven-billion milestone. Talking about the milestone, UN chief Antonio Guterres said, "The milestone [of 8 billion] is an occasion to celebrate diversity and advancements while considering humanity’s shared responsibility for the planet". With this, the number of people in the world has more than tripled in the last 70 years.
Previously, the UN had selected babies to represent the five, sixth and seven-billionth children previously. On July 11, 1987, Matej Gaspar was designated as the world's five billionth baby. In 1999, the world's sixth billionth baby was born in Bosnia. In 2011, Bangladesh's Sultana Oishee was named one of the world's seven-billionth babies. It remains to be seen who the world's eight-billionth baby will be.
How the world population has grown over what period?
Ten thousand years ago, when humans first invented agriculture, there were maybe one million humans on the planet. We didn’t reach a billion until the year 1800. It took more than a century to cross the next billion mark. In the late 1920s we passed the two billion mark and by 1960 we hit the three billion mark. In the last six decades, the global population has doubled from four billion to eight billion. Infact, the global population took only 12 years to reach eight billion from seven billion.
The current population is more than three times higher than the 2.5 billion global headcount in 1950. The annual growth rate of the world population was the fastest between 1962 and 1965, over the 100-year period between 1950 and 2050, reaching an average of 2.1 percent per year. Globally, life expectancy has increased and reached 72.8 years in 2019, which is almost a nine-year of increment since 1990. On the other hand, further reductions in mortality will increase life expectancy to an average of 77.2 years globally in 2050.
The United Nations project another 15 years to become nine billion in number, a billion more than today. The global body looks at the year 2080 for reaching 10 billion.
World population is actually on a decline
To a naked eye that seems like a short time when compared to a world’s population a century ago, the time taken to make that many more human beings, but in reality, the population explosion has actually slowed down.
According to the World Population Prospects Report 2022, the world populace has been increasing at its slowest pace since 1950 and during 2020, it has plummeted to under one percent. Under its most likely scenario, the UN projects the world population will hit the peak at 10.4 billion in the 2080s. From there, it's set to plateau for a couple of decades, before falling around the turn of the 22nd century.
But the range of reasonable possibilities in 2100 is considerably wider, between 8.9 and 12.4 billion.
The decline is attributed to declining fertility rates. In 1990, the average number of births per woman was 3.2. By 2019 this had fallen to 2.5 births per woman and, by 2050, this is projected to decline further to 2.2 births. The results of the UN report also show that the 46 least developed countries (LDCs) are among the world's fastest-growing unlike Latin America, Europe and Northern America, which are projected to reach their peak and then will begin to decline before 2100.
Source: United Nations
Up to 23 countries could see their populations shrink by more than 50 percent, including Japan, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Portugal, South Korea, and other countries due to low birth rates and ageing populations. Even the most populous country like China would see a fall in its population from 1.4 billion in 2017 to 732 million in 2100.
India projections
From 2022 to 2050, more than half of the projected increase in the global population will be concentrated in eight countries – India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Egypt, Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and the United Republic of Tanzania.
In less than five years, India is expected to overtake China as the world's most populous country. The country is expected to show the highest population increase between now and 2050. However, just like the global population, India's human count will hit the peak by 2040s, and will then start declining in the second half of this century. The fall in India’s population density is projected to be much higher than what is projected for the entire world.
These projections are based on a low fertility rate scenario. In other words, the total fertility is projected to remain 0.5 births below what it is by around 2050. In 2021, India's Total Fertility rate (TFR) slipped below the replacement level of fertility (which is 2.1 children per women) to two. Based on the low fertility rate projection scenario, India’s fertility rate is expected to fall from 1.76 births per woman to 1.39 in 2032, 1.28 in 2052, 1.2 in 2082, and 1.19 in 2100.
Environmentalists and other activists fear that the 8 billion mark portends a demographic disaster. But there are many arguments which paints a not-so-gloomy picture. While it is true that the population has exploded in the past decades, but the peak is arriving soon and then decline naturally.
