Why Global Population Growth Will Grind to a Halt by 2100
Global population growth will nearly grind to a stop by the end of the century, a new analysis by the Pew Research Center suggests.
Right now, the world's population is over 7.7 billion people, and it has been growing between 1% and 2% every year since 1950, according to the Pew Research Center. By 2100, the center projects the population will reach around 10.9 billion people and grow by less than 0.1% a year, the center wrote.
This is mostly due to a decreasing number of children born worldwide, the analysis said, based on data from the United Nation's report "World Population Prospects 2019."
The U.N.'s report found that global fertility rates will be less than the "replacement fertility rate," or the number of births per woman that would keep the population the same size, replacing people as they die. The current replacement fertility rate is 2.1 births per woman, which is less than the current global fertility rate of 2.5 births per woman. By 2100, the global fertility rate is expected to dip to 1.9 births per woman. [5 Ways the World Will Change Radically This Century]
What's more, the U.N. report found that the global median age to which people live will increase from 31 to 42 by 2100. Between 2020 and 2100, people 80 and over will increase from the current 146 million to 881 million. Latin America and the Caribbean will have the oldest people in the world by 2100.
Only Africa is expected to have a strong population growth by the end of the century, increasing from 1.3 billion people in 2020 to 4.3 billion people in 2100. Meanwhile, Europe's population is expected to peak in 2021, and both Europe and Latin America will be declining in population by 2100. Asia will increase in population by 2055, then decline and North America's population will continue to increase, mostly because of migration to the area, according to the U.N. report.
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Editor's note: This article was updated to correct an error. The U.N. report found the global median age, not the average age, that people will live to will increase from 31 to 42 by 2100.
Originally published on Live Science.
