EPA
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NOS News•today, 22:22
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One billion more people in 11 years. The global population is growing at staggering numbers, a UN report released today confirms. In November, the 8 billionth world citizen expected† But if you zoom in on the birth rates, the great stagnation of population growth in the world has long since started.
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On average, women have far fewer children than before. Even in sub-Saharan Africa, where the birth rate is more than double that of Europe and North America, that figure has been falling steadily since 1980. It has fallen from nearly seven children on average to 4.5 today.
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According to the UN, the global average is now below 2.5 births per woman:
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NOS
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In this article, four questions and answers about the latest UN population growth rates.
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Why is the world population rising so fast?
This is due to a combination of the fact that people live (much) longer on average and that relatively many children are still born in certain regions of the world. The aforementioned 4.5 babies per woman in sub-Saharan Africa is historically a low average, but it still represents strong population growth.
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You can imaginatively draw a horizontal line in the graph above at 2.1 births per woman. This is the minimum number of babies needed to sustain a population, according to the UN.
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Europe and North America have been below that for nearly half a century. That is why, on average, the population here can only grow as a result of immigration and the further extension of the average lifespan.
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But in Africa and parts of Asia, the birth rate is still above the 2.1 tipping point. At the current rate, the UN expects the world population to stabilize at around 10.4 billion people before the end of this century.
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Why is growth leveling off so fast?
Between 1960 and 1970 you can see almost all lines in the graph go down considerably. This is partly due to the advent of the pill and other contraceptives. But it is also related to the decline in child mortality that has already started and the rise of education, explains emeritus professor of demography Pieter Hooimeijer.
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“Where children used to be a kind of social security for the parents and contributed to the income, children became more and more expensive because they also had to receive education. In addition, having many babies also became less necessary, because many more survived than before. “
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Simply put: the more affluent and educated a population becomes, the fewer children are born per family on average. And that has been happening on a large scale for years. The percentage of the world’s population living below the poverty line has more than halved since 1990. The UN’s goal is that by 2030 only 3 percent of the population will live in extreme poverty.
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To what extent does religion play a role in birth rates?
In Judaism, Christianity and Islam there has always been traditional opposition to birth control, continues Hooimeijer. “We still see that Muslims in East Africa, for example, have more children on average. But that only applies to the poorer part of the population. And you also see that in the Christian population, who also have more children than average.”
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The UN statistics reinforce the picture that a higher level of education and income has more influence on birth rates than religion. In the predominantly conservative-Muslim Saudi Arabia, for example, the average number of babies per woman has fallen from just over 7 to just over 2.
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What are the expectations for the Netherlands?
While the population is shrinking in some European countries, this is not yet the case in the Netherlands. However, the current birth rate is below the tipping point of 2.1 births per woman. The Dutch population will continue to grow for the time being as a result of migration and an increasing lifespan.
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CBS expects that in 2070 there will be somewhere between 18.8 million and 22.2 million people living in the Netherlands. These figures differ widely, because it is difficult to predict the number of migrants over such a long period.
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The increasingly aging population brings problems with it. This phenomenon will further exacerbate the already acute shortage of personnel. Healthcare costs will also continue to rise, because increasingly older people rely on medical help for longer. But the global statistics suggest that sooner or later all countries will have to deal with this.
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