How many inhabitants in the world! One of the major lessons in world demographic history is that the growth of the world population is tearing.
How many people are there in the world? For many nations, growth has already ended, and with the general decline in fertility, the rest of the planet will also stop its race to world overpopulation. Yes, the world population will slow down, the inhabitants around the world will be fewer: the statistics on the real number of inhabitants of the earth will no longer show any total increase. Far from it.
There is no real counter that counts births and deaths in real time, but the historical series that allow the elaboration of world statistics do exist.
As can be seen from the demographic chart, the population in the world has experienced constant growth in the last few centuries. Until the second post-war period, around 1950. From that moment on, the population in the world started exponentially growing. The current world population is approaching the "peak" expected in less than 80 years, almost to a halt. At that point, the number of inhabitants of the earth should remain constant. It is hard to believe, but on the distribution of the increase in the earth's population the forecast has always been the same: population increase expected more and more in the big cities.
The world population chart collects data on the evolution of world population growth from the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
By data analyzed by the United Nations we know from an estimate that until 1700 the growth rate of the world population has been very slow: the updated statistics say only 0.04% per year. Of course, past peoples had more fertility, but infant mortality offset this trend: it was the first phase of the demographic transition. The current world population is subject to other dynamics.
With the improvement of general health conditions and the drop in mortality, things have changed quickly for world demography, especially in the 20th century. In terms of demographic evolution, in the last 100 years the world population has more than quadrupled, and my generation (I was born in 1975) has found itself almost at the peak of this growth in the world's inhabitants.
The world population has grown in percentage more than 7 times in the past 200 years producing a terrifying impact on the environment. Giving space, food and resources to as many people as possible is a huge challenge.
We must never underestimate it. World population growth is not a given. IS IL given.
World population updated in October 2019: 7,7 billion.
source: wikipedia
The current growth of the inhabitants of the planet is still dizzying: 140 million people are born every year and how many die? 58 million. Yes, the world population is growing by 82 million a year.
Where are we going?
In violet there is the annual population growth rate: it peaked in the last century, precisely in 1968. Since then it has slowed down, and today stands at 1% per year. The world experiences the end of a large expansion cycle.
This graph also shows how the UN assesses this process in the near future. With the continued decline in population growth, the current world population grows more slowly, and the population curve is becoming less steep. By 2100 the growth rate will be 0.1%, the population will be about to stop an incredible race altogether, after having increased tenfold in just 250 years.
We are on the eve of a new phase of humanity, in which the balance will not be tied in by high mortality, but by low fertility.
New challenges, new problems to manage, among which there will probably not be overpopulation but its opposite.
Edit: new studies on world demographic statistics confirm this trend, also detailing the characteristics of what will be an authentic geopolitical revolution (or counter-revolution). I talked about it in this post.
