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Most of us are just trying to hang on until the end of 2020, so the idea of looking forward to 2100 is quite a stretch. Let’s try, anyway.

Fancy a guess at the world’s population before we go any further?

We’ll be using the Worldometer counter, by the way, which is generally accepted as an accurate measurement.

Answer time – just the 7,8 billion people on this planet, thank you very much, which is a figure also backed up by The World Counts.

Despite the fact that COVID-19 has currently claimed in excess of 580 000 lives around the world, that has nothing to do with why a recent study, carried out by researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine, predicted a peak in the global population in 2064.

At that stage, there are likely to be around 9,7 billion people on the planet, but that number will drop to closer to 8,8 billion by the end of the century, as women get better access to education and contraception.

Here’s CNN with more:

By 2100, 183 of 195 countries will not have fertility rates required to maintain the current population, with a projected 2.1 births per woman, researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine said.

Some 23 countries — including Japan, Thailand, Italy, and Spain — will see populations shrink by more than 50%, researchers said.

The same cannot be said for sub-Saharan Africa, where the population is expected to triple by the end of the century, which would mean that Africa accounts for half of the total global population by 2100.

This graph, from the study published in The Lancet, maps out that global decline:

Despite declining fertility rates in many regions, the population of countries like the US, Australia, and Canada is expected to remain steady due to immigration.

Here’s the gist of why this study has caused such waves around the scientific world:

“The world, since the 1960s, has been really focused on the so-called population explosion,” Dr Christopher Murray, who led the research, told CNN.

“Suddenly, we’re now seeing this sort of turning point where it is very clear that we are rapidly transitioning from the issue of too many people to too few.”

Not sure I would call 8,8 billion people by the end of the century “too few”, but he’s the scientist.

If you look at the numbers from Japan, it’s easier to understand, with the current population of around 128 million expected to drop to 60 million by 2100.

In Thailand, the same numbers are 71 million to 35 million, Spain from 46 million to 23 million, and Italy from 61 million to 31 million.

China will also a massive reduction in numbers, by as much as 50%, with an increasingly ageing population also an important factor to consider:

The study also predicts major changes in the global age structure as fertility falls and life expectancy increases, with an estimated 2.37 billion people over 65 years globally in 2100, compared with 1.7 billion under the age of 20.

The global number of people older than 80 could increase sixfold, from 141 million to 866 million.

Meanwhile, the number of children under the age of five is forecast to decline by more than 40% — from 681 million in 2017 to 401 million in 2100.

I guess future generations will have to come up with another nickname to replace ‘Boomers’, with the current global climate unlikely to make that chirp viable decades from now.

Nowhere in the study are Millennials blamed for anything, which also makes a nice change.

Read CNN’s full report here.

[source:cnn]