World Population Prospects 2024

The latest from the UN. Key points:

1. The world’s population is expected to continue growing for another 50 or 60 years, reaching a peak of around 10.3 billion people in the mid-2080s, up from 8.2 billion in 2024. After peaking, it is projected to start declining, gradually falling to 10.2 billion people by the end of the century.

2. One in four people globally lives in a country whose population has already peaked in size. In 63 countries and areas, containing 28 per cent of the world’s population in 2024, the size of the population peaked before 2024. In 48 countries and areas, with 10 per cent of the world’s population in 2024, population size is projected to peak between 2025 and 2054. In the remaining 126 countries and areas, the population is likely to continue growing through 2054, potentially reaching a peak later in the century or beyond 2100.

3. Women today bear one child fewer, on average, than they did around 1990. Currently, the global fertility rate stands at 2.25 live births per woman, down from 3.31 births in 1990. More than half of all countries and areas globally have fertility below 2.1 births per woman, the level required for a population to maintain a constant size in the long run without migration.

4. The population of China is likely to fall by more then 200 million by 2054, that of Japan by 21 million, that of Russia by 10 million. In percentage terms the biggest declines will be in the Balkans, where Albania, Moldova, and Bosnia are all likely to lose more than 20 percent of their people. By 2100 China's population may fall by 55%.

5. The UN expects a "rebound" in birth rates in countries where fertility has fallen below 1.4, but not up to replacement level; perhaps up to 1.8. They say this has been observed in some countries already. However, this won't slow population decline, since the declining number of potential mothers means the population would fall even if fertility rose back up above 2.

6. Most of the growth in global population will happen in sub-Saharan Africa; growth will also continue in a few other countries (Yemen, Afghanistan, central Asia). Latin America and East Asia are already shrinking; Europe and North America would be, except for immigration.

And note that many demographers think these projections understate fertility decline, which they think is accelerating almost everywhere.