Posted on 26-3-2004

World Population 9 billion by 2050
By Andrew Gumbel, The Independent

The world population is likely to increase to more than 9 billion by the
middle of this century, roughly 50 per cent higher than it is now,
according to a new study by the US Census Bureau. But the exponential
growth of the past 15 years is expected to slow significantly as some
populations age and others are ravaged by the AIDS pandemic.

The Bureau calculated that the world is currently adding population at a
rate of 1.2 per cent per year. That means 74 million new human beings
every 12 months, and the equivalent of the entire population of western
Europe being added every five years.

There has, however, been a reversal in the rate of growth since population
hit the 6 billion mark in June 1999. It took just 12 years for the
population to jump from 5 billion to 6 billion - the fastest billion ever.
However, it is likely to take 14 years for the population to reach 7
billion, 15 years after that to get to 8 billion, and another 20 years to
go as high as 9 billion.

The overall growth rate is expected to slow to 0.42 per cent by 2050.
Already, 88 countries have fertility rates below the point where current
population levels will be maintained. By 2050, that is projected to be
true for the world as a whole.

The primary reason for this slowing, the Census Bureau said, is that
fertile women of child-bearing age are making up an ever shrinking
proportion of the overall population. Largely, this is the result of
people living longer. In 2002, people over the age of 65 made up 7 per
cent of the world's population. By 2050, that figure is expected to leap
to 17 per cent.

Among the many unknowns in these calculations, however, are two
imponderable factors. One is the availability of contraceptives, and the
other is the continuing devastating effect of AIDS. Some 20 million people
are believed to have died of AIDS so far, and another 40 million are
believed to be infected with the HIV virus. Barring a major medical
breakthrough, most of these people are expected to die in the next 10
years or so. In parts of Africa, this could bring the average life
expectancy down as low as 30 by 2010, a rate not seen in the past 100
years. There are, however, some signs of hope for the future, the Bureau
said. "If prevention of mother-to-child transmission programmes are
dramatically scaled up," it wrote, then the course of future child
mortality rates can be changed. "Moreover, several countries, including
Thailand, Senegal, and Uganda, have managed to stem the tide of the
pandemic.

These examples give hope that the AIDS pandemic can be successfully
curtailed in other countries." On the issue of birth control, the Bureau
reported: "Though contraceptive prevalence has risen dramatically since
the 1960s, there are at least 100 million women in the world's developing
countries today who would like to space or limit their pregnancies but are
not using contraception. "These women, considered to have 'unmet need for
family planning', are found in greater numbers in Asia than in other world
regions but make up higher proportions of the populations of Sub-Saharan
African countries than of countries in other parts of the world." The
Bureau's figures were based on purely statistical projections and did not
factor in other imponderables such as the possibility of major wars or the
possible impact of greatly increased populations on food supply and other
environmental considerations.

They are, however, broadly in line with other population estimates by the
United Nations and from other authoritative sources. According to the
Popular Reference Bureau, a private research group, for example, birth
rates are currently higher in India than they are in China, say.

At current rates, India's population is likely to rise more than 50 per
cent to 1.6 billion by 2050, causing it to overtake China as the world's
most populous country. Those trends are, however, subject to unpredictable
change. The Census Bureau's own projections have been modified slightly as
population trends have shifted. In 1998, the Bureau forecast a world
population of 9.3 billion by 2050. Now its best estimate is 9.1 billion.