The latest report of the United Nations about population indicates that the world will have over 8 billion people by end-year, 2022.
The fast-progressing climate crisis shows that humanity’s footprint is dangerously overshooting planetary carrying capacity. Population stabilisation is vital to sustain our future. The UN projects this will not happen till 2080 and by then there will be 9.7 billion of us.
How we last that long is an open question. But the good news is that we are on the right track with population growth halved to 1 percent over the past hundred years. Women are having fewer children at 2.3, projected to decline to 2.1 by mid-century. It is worth celebrating that more of us are living longer; life expectancy has reached 72.8 years and will reach 77.2 years by 2050, TRT World reported today.
Although we are heading eventually towards convergence at the end of this century, our demographic destinies are currently diverging. This points towards an unbalanced world with greater inequality and instability born out of the differing composition of our populations.
People in the least developed countries live 7 years less than the global average because poverty loads the dice against them. Meanwhile, their fertility remains high, for example, at 4.6 children per woman of child-bearing age in sub-Saharan Africa.
Nations with youthful populations struggle to meet their education, health, employment, and other basic needs. As their prospects for the Sustainable Development Goals get dimmer, social and political instability are heightened at a time when the world is at its least peaceful since the Second World War.
But there is a silver lining for sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Asia and Americas, where a bulging working population (25-64 years) means brighter prospects for economic growth. This demographic dividend contrasts with the demographic decline among 61 countries with falling populations, mostly in Europe and North America.
