NEW YORK – According to United Nations (UN) estimates, this Tuesday the world will reach 8,000 million inhabitants, a figure that is the result of the dizzying growth of the population during the last century thanks, above all, to the increase in the life expectation.
The world population, which took until 1800 to reach 1 billion and was still less than 2 billion a hundred years ago, continues to reach milestones at high speed.
It took just twelve years for the world to go from 7,000 to 8,000 million, but population growth has been slowing down sharply for decades: the annual growth rate reached its peak in 1964, when it reached 2.2%, and not it stopped decreasing until it fell below 1%.
According to United Nations calculations, it will take at least fifteen years for the world to add the next billion people.
9,700 MILLION PEOPLE BY 2050, FORECASTS UN
The organization predicts that the world will have about 9.7 billion people by 2050 and that it will reach 10.4 billion during the 2080s, and then remain at that level until at least 2100.
Today population growth is concentrated in a handful of countries, as more than half of the expected population increase between now and 2050 will occur in just eight: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania.
Meanwhile, the population of 61 countries or areas is projected to decrease by at least 1% between 2022 and 2050 due to low birth rates and, in some cases, high emigration.
For the United Nations, the 8 billion mark is a moment to celebrate, reflecting a world with higher life expectancies, fewer maternal and child deaths, and increasingly effective health systems.
“I know this moment may not be celebrated by all. Some are expressing concern that our world is overcrowded, with too many people, and that there are not enough resources to sustain their lives. I am here to make it clear that the sheer number of lives is no cause for fear,” Natalia Kanem, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), explained in a meeting with reporters last month.
The United Nations reaffirms that there are no reasons for demographic “alarmism” and recalls that the best way to halt population growth is to promote development, especially for women.
The data show that in the more advanced countries the fertility rate tends to decrease and, for example, today 60% of the world population lives in places where the fertility rate is below the replacement level, while it is the countries less developed that continue to see meteoric population growth.
WHICH ARE THE MOST POPULATED COUNTRIES?
China is currently the world’s most populous country, but it is expected to be overtaken by India by 2023, as projections have been suggesting for years.
The two Asian giants each have more than 1.4 billion inhabitants and are by far the largest powers in terms of population.
The United States is the third most populous country in the world, at about 337 million, followed by Indonesia (275 million), Pakistan (234 million), and Nigeria (216 million).
