World Population Growth

May 9, 2024

Do you find yourself asking, ” How many people can the earth support?” The answer that many U.S. scientists proposed in the mid-1980s, at a time when the world population totaled about 5 billion people, was 7 billion. The world population reached almost 7 billion in 2010 and will surpass 8 billion people in 2024 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024). United Nations demographers projected that the world population could reach 12 billion people by 2100 (U.N., 2022). Realistically, however, the world population estimate on which scientists agree is 10.43 billion people in the 2080s followed by stabilized and decreasing numbers of people across countries around the world, except Africa and India (Cilluffo & Ruiz, 2019). This information doesn’t answer the original question, but it is a place to start.

Looking at individual countries in Europe, the population stabilization and decline is already in progress. Declining populations were evident in Eastern European countries such as Hungry (1980), Bulgaria (1987), Croatia (1990), Lithuania (1992), Latvia (1992), and Poland (1996) in the 20th century, and in Italy (2015) and Germany (2020) in the early 21st century. Population decline occurs with reductions in fertility and birth rates and as large groups of older adults such as the baby boom generation reach the end of their lives. Other explanations for declining population are emigration to find employment and an affordable cost of living. European countries such as France and Switzerland provide examples of countries with adequate resources and a satisfied populous that are expected to have slow continued population growth to 2100.

Nobody knows for sure whether the world population will continue to grow until the mid-2080s. Forecasting the growth or decline of the world population is subject to miscalculations for numerous reasons (National Academies Press, 2000).  If the balance between cost of living and available resources along with life satisfaction are key factors, the stabilization and decline of the world population may take place more quickly than the demographers currently project, as has happened in the past.

References

Cilluffo, A., & Ruiz, N. G. (2019, June 17). World’s population is projected to nearly stop growing by the end of the century. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/

National Academies Press. (2000). Beyond six billion: Forecasting the world’s population. Chapter 2 The accuracy of past projections. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/9828/chapter/4

United Nations. (2022, July). Too fast, too slow, just right? The UN’s 2022 population projections. https://populationmatters.org/news/2022/07/too-fast-too-slow-just-right-the-uns-2022-population-projections/

U.S. Census Bureau. (2024). International database (IDB). https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/idb/#/dashboard?COUNTRY_YEAR=2024&COUNTRY_YR_ANIM=2030

The Aging World Population

May 16, 2024

Population growth concerns many of us: How will we take care of the growing population, especially aging adults who require support from younger members of society?