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When Will The Global Population Reach Its Peak?
Visual Capitalist ^ | 11/09/2023 | Marcus Lu ; Graphics/Design: Miranda Smith

Posted on 11/09/2023 9:11:47 PM PST by SeekAndFind

When will the world reach its peak population?

According to data from the United Nations’ 2022 Revision of its World Population Prospects, we could see a peak of over 10.4 billion people sometime in the late 2080s.

While the UN’s projections are the most widely used, this doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the most accurate. Several alternative models have predicted an earlier and lower peak, suggesting that the world’s population could decline sooner than expected.

In the UN’s latest revisions, it lowered its own estimates for global population in 2100, from 10.9 billion (as of 2019) to 10.4 billion (as of 2022).

In this graphic, Visual Capitalist's Marcu Lu and Miranda Smith visualized population projections to 2100 from three organizations: the UN, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).

Data and Highlights

The population projection data we used to create this graphic is listed in the table below. Note that UN projections are as of 2022, IHME are as of 2020, and IIASA are as of 2014.

From this data we can see that the UN expects the world to hit peak population in 2086, as well as maintain above 10 billion people in 2100.

On the other hand, neither the IHME nor IIASA models expect global population to reach 10 billion, instead forecasting a peak of 9.7 billion in the 2060s (IHME) or 9.4 billion in 2070 (IIASA). Both models also predict population to fall back to the 8 billion range by 2100.

The differential at 2100 is substantial, with IHME’s forecast lower than the UN’s by 1.6 billion people, for example.

What Is the IHME and IIASA, and Why Do They Differ?

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is a Seattle-based research institute founded in 2007 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Its mission is to “deliver to the world timely, relevant, and scientifically valid evidence to improve health policy and practice.”

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), on the other hand, is an international research institute based in Austria, dating back to 1972. It was established to improve scientific cooperation between the Soviet Union and the U.S., and today has members in over 20 countries.

To understand why the IHME and IIASA models differ from the UN’s, let’s look at each organization’s projections for fertility rate, which is measured as the number of children per woman.

Based on this chart, the IHME and IIASA expect global fertility rates to fall at a quicker rate pre-2050, then stabilize as we approach 2100. This contrasts with the UN’s projections, which expect fertility to decrease at a slower, steadier rate all the way to 2100.

Generally speaking, a country’s birth rate declines as it becomes more developed. This is due to many factors like higher education rates for women (and thus more women in the workforce), greater access to contraceptives and family planning, as well as higher childbearing costs.

How Fast Will Fertility Rates Fall in Africa?

Sub-Saharan Africa has one of the highest fertility rates in the world, but this is quickly falling as the region experiences rapid economic growth.. For instance, GDP per capita in Sub-Saharan Africa has climbed from $632 in 2000, to $1,690 in 2022.

Because of this economic transformation, some researchers believe that Africa will undergo a fast demographic transition similar to East Asia, in which population growth falls off sharply. For instance, a UNICEF survey from 2021 found that fertility rates in Nigeria had fallen from 5.8 to 4.6 (a 17% decrease) in just five years time.

ℹ️ Consider this July 2023 article from the Wilson Center for more context on the evolution of Nigeria’s demographics.

Now going back to the question at hand, let’s see how the UN and IHME’s fertility rate projections for Sub-Saharan Africa differ.

These differences may seem small, but even a few decimal places can have a huge impact. For example, let’s revisit the UN’s population projection for the year 2100, which was 10.4 billion people.

Under the UN’s low fertility scenario (birth rates remain 0.5 lower), population in 2100 would be a significantly smaller 7.0 billion. Meanwhile, under the high fertility scenario (birth rates remain 0.5 higher), population would balloon to 14.7 billion.

As a result, how birth rates change in high fertility regions like Sub-Saharan Africa will have a significant influence on when the global population will reach its peak.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: demographics; peak; population
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To: FarCenter

And they love you long time.


21 posted on 11/10/2023 4:28:11 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: SeekAndFind

War, pandemics, extinction events, genocide... at el.

The equation is not possible to solve given the overall dynamics.


22 posted on 11/10/2023 4:36:31 AM PST by Clutch Martin ("The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right." )
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To: SeekAndFind

According to leftists it happened about 50 years ago.


23 posted on 11/10/2023 4:46:41 AM PST by Iron Munro (Sun Tzu: An Evil Man Will Burn His Own Nation To The Ground To Rule Over The Ashes. )
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To: Fungi

All true.

“Malthusian economics” is alive and well. I think it is more aptly called “Malthusian biology.” As one trained in economics, I’m happy to let the biologists have it.

I read once that Malthus predicted mass starvation in England in 30 years. When that did not happen, he concluded that his theory did not apply to people!

I wish that other people could learn from their mistakes. The reverend was more scientific that many people today who claim to be following “the science.”


24 posted on 11/10/2023 5:01:14 AM PST by ChessExpert (Required for informed consent: "We have a new, experimental vaccine.")
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To: SeekAndFind

The most interesting thing about demographics is how they end up locked in for decades moving forward. Radically assumptions are necessary to generate extremes, and even so the divergences take 20-30 years even to start materializing. The primary reason to extrapolate out to 50 years and beyond is because no horizon shorter than this ends up very interesting.

Next to these, the lefties insert “moderate” scenarios that give sublime results from their enlightened policies — fixing climate change, contraception and reproductive rights for all, no borders, a big rock candy mountain within 100 miles of everyone, etc. It then follows that by golly we better get busy on all of this stuff so that we don’t end up egregiously over- or under-populated ... at the end of this century.

The IHME is amazing, fantastic, beautiful by the way, if one can simply tune out the lefty noise. Their data are pretty darn comprehensive, complete, rigorous, ...

What to make of this? Looking out decades, I myself reject the extremes and see a middle ground that is not especially dependent on following one set of policy options or another. Then I focus on the next 10-15 years, as my large crew of children (ages 24 - 33) make key life decisions. The mass retirement and human capital attrition of old folks from high-income workforces in the US, Europe, Japan, Asia, etc. will create a vacuum like no one anywhere is anticipating. My over-educated and highly motivated children will have professional opportunities that astound. I lecture them relentlessly, though, not to put too much weight on their professional opportunities, because there will be even greater rewards (accruing over decades) for them in having large, talented families of their own.

Especially on issues like DEI and affirmative action, the left is gobsmackingly zero-sum over a 10- or 20-year forward-looking horizon. In fact, there will be huge returns from elevating anyone and everyone — even white men — who are talented, work hard and do good work. As us oldsters retire and die off, there will not be enough young adults to pick up the slack. The world’s mentality will have to shift to “all hands on deck,” and I am confident that it will.


25 posted on 11/10/2023 5:33:47 AM PST by drellberg
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To: SeekAndFind
The population of Trantor was over 40 billion, but of course it had 25 million planets in the Empire to support it for basic needs like food.

If the Earth's population gets much bigger than it is today, Joe Biden and the rest of the war-lovers will be hard-pressed to supply all of the weapons and ammunition required for all of the wars that will follow. Doesn't mean they won't keep trying.

26 posted on 11/10/2023 5:38:38 AM PST by Bernard ("No matter where you go, there you are." (Buckaroo Banzai))
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To: SeekAndFind

I don’t think that these projections reflect calorie restrictions in the future decades.

The production of calories depends on natural gas for nitrogen fixation using the Haber-Bosch process, limited reserves of rock phosphate in few locations, and hydrocarbons for production of agrochemicals and fuels for tillage and transportation.

There is also the possibility of plant and animal disease epidemics (for which see Potato Blight).


27 posted on 11/10/2023 7:35:31 AM PST by FarCenter
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