Population to reach 9.2bn in 2050 as humanity ages

Published on Thursday 15 March 2007 01:24

THE Earth's population will reach 9.2 billion in 2050, with nearly three times as many people over the age of 60 and virtually all growth in the developing world, the UN Population Division has said in its latest report.

Hania Zlotnik, the division's director, said an important change in the new population estimate is a decrease in expected deaths from HIV/AIDS, because of the increasing use of anti-retroviral drugs and the downward revision of the prevalence of the disease in some countries.

The new report estimates 32 million fewer deaths from AIDS between 2005 and 2020 in the 62 most affected countries, compared with the previous UN estimate in 2004.

This change contributed to the slightly higher world population estimate of 9.2 billion in 2050 in the 2006 estimate, compared with 9.1 billion in the 2004 estimate, the report said.

The new 2006 report also confirms "the very huge changes" that the population of the world is about to experience, mostly as a result of the reduction in fertility in developing countries, Ms Zlotnik said.

Fertility has dipped below replacement levels in 28 developing countries that account for a quarter of the world's population, including China, the report said. China's average birth rate between 2005 and 2010 is estimated at 1.73 children per woman.

According to the 2006 estimate, world population will likely increase by 2.5 billion people over the next 43 years from the current 6.7 billion - a rise equivalent to the world's population in 1950.

If fertility levels are slightly higher than projected, global population would reach 10.8 billion in 2050; if slightly lower, it would hit 7.8 billion, the report said.

The growing population will be absorbed mainly in less developed countries, whose population is projected to rise from 5.4 billion in 2007 to 7.9 billion in 2050. The populations of poor countries such as Afghanistan, Burundi, Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Niger, East Timor and Uganda are projected to at least triple by mid-century.

By contrast, the population of richer developed countries is expected to remain largely unchanged at 1.2 billion. The figure would be lower without expected migration from poorer to richer countries, averaging 2.3 million people annually.

But 46 countries are expected to lose population by mid-century, including Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea and most of the countries in the former Soviet Union.

Population growth will remain concentrated in populous countries, with half the projected increase from 2005 to 2050 in eight countries listed according to the size of their expected growth - India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Congo, Ethiopia, the United States, Bangladesh and China, the report said.

Half the rise in world population between 2005 and 2050 will be the result of a rise in the over-60 population, while the number of children under 15 will fall slightly.

Today, just 8 per cent of the population in developing countries is over 60 years old, but the report said that by mid-century the figure will rise to 20 per cent. "Population ageing is, in fact, the result of a success - the success of humanity in controlling its number," Ms Zlotnik said. "The only thing we can hope is that ageing continues and that society can adapt itself."

She said most countries in Asia and Latin America have reached the "relatively beneficial stage" of having more workers than children or elderly, "and they will remain in that stage for at least two more decades".

But then their populations will start ageing more, which is where Europe and North America are going, she said.

African countries will have a lot of workers by 2050, but the continent's population will nearly double from 2007 to 2050.

"So it is the continent that is going to have to absorb a very high increase, and it will have to absorb it at levels of development that are the very lowest that we have in this world," Ms Zlotnik said.

GAINERS

• India

• Nigeria

• Pakistan

• Congo

• Ethiopia

• US

• Bangladesh

• China

LOSERS

• Germany

• Italy

• Japan

• South Korea

• Most of the countries in the former Soviet Union