Predicted increase of 2.4 billion will complicate efforts to stamp out poverty, inequality and hunger and place further strain on health and education systems
By Sam Jones and Mark Anderson
 |
Babies rest at the Pouponnière
orphanage in the Senegalese capital
The world’s population is set
to rise to almost 10 billion people by 2050,
according to the UN. Photograph:
Georges Gobet/
|
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 Ethiopia Tanzania US Indonesia 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.”
By
2050, six countries – China India Indonesia Nigeria Pakistan US
The
report suggests that Africa alone will drive more than half of the
world’s population growth over the next 35 years, during which time the
population of 28 of the continent’s countries will more than double. It is
predicted that by 2050, Nigeria US
If
current birthrate trends persist, Africa ,
which contains 27 of the world’s 48 least developed countries, will be the only
major area still experiencing substantial population growth after 2050. Consequently,
its share of the global population is forecast to rise to 25% in 2050 and 39%
by 2100. Asia ’s share, meanwhile, will fall to 54% in 2050
and 44% in 2100.
“Regardless
of the uncertainty surrounding future trends in fertility in Africa, the large
number of young people currently on the continent who will reach adulthood in
the coming years and have children of their own, ensures that the region will
play a central role in shaping the size and distribution of the world’s
population over the coming decades,” says the report.
John
Wilmoth, director of the population division in the UN’s department of economic
and social affairs, said the new projections laid bare the scale of the task
facing the world as it prepares to agree the development framework for the next
15 years.
“The
concentration of population growth in the poorest countries presents its own
set of challenges, making it more difficult to eradicate poverty and inequality,
to combat hunger and malnutrition, and to expand educational enrolment and
health systems, all of which are crucial to the success of the new sustainable
development agenda,” he said.
Wilmoth
explained that although population growth rate had declined “gradually but
steadily” since the 1970s, it had done so at different speeds in different
parts of the world.
“Africa
is currently the region of the world where population growth is still rather
rapid due to continued high levels of fertility, but even there we see the
sorts of changes that were predicted and expected in the sense that, once
populations start to have a higher level of life expectancy, they also come to
realise that there’s not the same need to produce as many children,” he said.
“With
increasing child survival, it just doesn’t make as much sense to have such
large families as it did in the past.”
Of
all the world’s major regions, only Europe
can expect a steady decline in its population over the remainder of this
century, with its total inhabitants expected to shrink from 738 million people
now to 646 million in 2100.
Almost
half the people in the world (46%) live in countries with low levels of
fertility, where women have fewer than 2.1 children on average during their
lifetimes. Such countries include all of Europe and northern America Caribbean ones, three in Oceania and one in Africa .
Another
46% live in “intermediate fertility” countries – such as India, Indonesia, Pakistan,
Bangladesh,Mexico and the Philippines – where women have on average between 2.1
and five children.
The
remainder live in “high-fertility” countries, where fertility declines have
been only limited and where the average woman has five or more children over
her lifetime. All but two of the 21 “high-fertility” countries are in Africa ; the largest are Nigeria Democratic Republic of the Congo Tanzania Uganda
The
slowdown in population growth provoked by the overall fall in fertility will
also cause the proportion of older people to increase over time: the number of
older people in the world is projected to be 1.4 billion by 2030, 2.1 billion
by 2050, and could rise to 3.2 billion by the turn of the next century.
In
Europe, 34% of the population is predicted to be over 60 by 2050 (up from 24%
today); in Latin America and the Caribbean, the proportion of people in the
same age group will more than double to reach 25% by the middle of the century.
The population of Africa , which has the youngest age distribution of
any area, will age rapidly, with the proportion of people aged over 60
increasing from 5% today to 9% by 2050.
Although
the report predicts that the global population will reach 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7
billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100, the UN acknowledges that its
predictions could be skewed by slower-than-projected declines in fertility.
It
currently estimates that global fertility will fall from 2.5 children a woman
in 2010-2015 to 2.4 in 2025-2030 and 2.0 in 2095-2100. Steep declines are also
projected for the world’s least-developed countries, with the average dropping
from 4.3 in 2010-2015 to 3.5 in 2025-2030, and 2.1 in 2095-2100.
However,
should fertility rates not decline along the predicted lines – if, for example,
all countries had a rate that was half a child above the medium variant – the
global population in 2100 could swell to 16.6 billion people, more than five
billion more than the current estimate.
“To
realise the substantial reductions in fertility projected … it is essential to
invest in reproductive health and family planning, particularly in the least-developed
countries, so that women and couples can achieve their desired family size,”
says the report.
“In
2015, the use of modern contraceptive methods in the least-developed countries
was estimated at around 34% among women of reproductive age who were married or
in union, and a further 22% of such women had an unmet need for family planning,
meaning that they were not using any method of contraception despite a stated
desire or intention to avoid or delay childbearing.”
The
latest projections are based on the previous report, the 2010 round of national
population censuses and recent demographic and health surveys.
@ The Guardian
