There are on average about 250 babies born every minute – more than 130 million a year. It is projected that the worldwide population will peak in about 40 years, reaching 9.7 billion, from there we're headed for a drastic decline, with the world’s population expected to fall to 8.8 billion in 2100.
Most countries will see their current population shrink, and some 23 countries will see them plummet by more than 50%. The top of the list of countries with declining population are Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, and also Ukraine.
China, which still stands as the world's most populous nation is said to be overtaken by India in 2026. Nigeria is also projected to have 800 Million inhabitants, making her the second most populous country in the world by 2100.
The overall fertility rate of the world has dropped from 5 children per woman in 1950, to 2.5 in 2021, which means that women in 2021 will, on average, have half the amount of children during their lifetime than women did seventy years ago.
Studies predicts that Teenagers will be outnumbered by the elderly by the end of the century, with 2.37 billion inhabitants over 65 compared to 1.7 billion under the age of 20, and the number of children under five is predicted to drop more than 40%.
One of the reasons why the fertility rates are dropping may be as a result of “MODERNIZATION THEORY” , as girls get better access to education and Healthcare, the birth rate falls.
You might think this is great for the environment. A smaller population would reduce carbon emissions as well as deforestations for farmlands. But this also spells bad news for taxpayers and less people to care for the swelling number of the elderly.
On question from expert Professor Mary , she said
“as a feminist and an environmentalist, I do indeed see these findings as good news, because what they tell us is that we as women become more empowered, they choose to have smaller families and obviously will put less pressure on planetary resources. But we should not forget that inequality is an important driver in the environmental crisis. So we have to remember that the richest people in societies across the world and the richest countries in the world are really causing more pressure than before for people. So it's not just a question of what number of people, it's also about how they live.”
On another question she said
I think the pattern that the report shows is that countries in the global north some more than others, but including Britain, will have an increasingly elderly population, and countries in the global South will have a younger population. And I think that will lead us towards a situation where we really have a more rational approach to migration, and we need to learn to share the world's resources fairly across countries rather than to have this ideas of always defending our borders.
It's going to be a big collision because you really only have two strategies to sustain economies and societies make it easier for women to work and have childrensexpan. And that's, of course, Super important in its own right, but will increase fertility, maybe by about 0.2 children per woman. So not enough to deal with the problem, but in an important step. And the other strategy is migration. And so those societies that don't embrace migration will go into quite profound decline within working age population.
I think we will see working ages expand. It will be one of the strategies, but it's a one off fix in a sense that if you extend retirement, you for a period, you get an increased workforce. But then you are right back to that expanded working time. The number of people in that group will start to shrink as well. I'm always got case.
Question arising here How are we going to sort of redesign our societies? I think because of COVID 19, we've already started doing that, and we started to see people working in a different way. We additionally want to about unemployment rising and with automation, we're going to see fewer jobs and more jobs done by machines and computers. So I think we need to make sure that the value of that work is shared barely that's an absolute priority. But we also need to be consider about how many people in our population are able to work. And I agree that we need to be really rethinking our approach to migration and seeing people who are prepared to come and be part of our society as a benefit rather than having this, you know, idea of very hard borders and migrants, of being a threat.”