The global population is set to reach 11 billion by the end of the century – and Africans will make up half of this number, a UN study predicts.
By 2050, the global population will rise from 7.3 billion to 9.7 billion and by 2100, Africa’s current population of 1.2 billion is expected to explode to 5.6 billion.
Experts predict such rapid growth will boost pollution, make resources scarce and fuel unemployment, poverty, crime and political unrest.
By 2050, the global population will rise from 7.3 billion to 9.7 billion and by 2100, Africa’s current population of 1.2 billion is expected to explode to 5.6 billion (stock image of Nigerians pictured). The predictions were made by the director of the United Nations Population Division at the 2015 Joint Statistical Meetings in Seattle
The predictions were made by John Wilmoth, the director of the United Nations Population Division, at the 2015 Joint Statistical Meetings in Seattle.
His presentation, ‘Populations Projections by the United Nations’, was made as part of the session titled ‘Better Demographic Forecasts, Better Policy Decisions’.
In the US, the population is projected to add 1.5 million per year on average until the end of the century, pushing the current count of 322 million to 450 million.
While Asia, with a current population of 4.4 billion, is expected to peak around the middle of the century at 5.3 billion, and then decline to around 4.9 billion.
THE RISE IN AGEING POPULATIONS
The UN report examined the level of population ageing in different countries using the potential support ratio (PSR).
PSR is equal to the number of people aged 20 to 64 divided by the number of people aged 65 or over.
It is considered the number of workers per retiree.
Japan currently has the lowest PSR at 2.1, followed by Italy at 2.6.
In the US, where the median age of the population is expected to increase from today’s 38 years to 44.7 years by 2100, the PSR is projected to decline from 4 to 1.9.
Other countries that will experience sharp declines in their PSR by the end of the century include Germany, from 2.9 to 1.4, China, from 7.1 to 1.4 and Mexico, 1.4 down from 8.7.
Only five countries are projected to have a PSR above 5.0 in 2100 and these include Niger, Somalia, Nigeria, Gambia and Angola.
Niger is expected to have the highest PSR by the end of the century at 6.5.
The UN projection suggests there will not be an end to world population growth this century unless there are ‘unprecedented fertility declines’ in parts of sub-Saharan Africa that are still experiencing rapid population growth.
And it estimates the probability the world population growth will end within this century to be 23 per cent.
Director Wilmoth said according to models of demographic change derived from historical experience, it is estimated the global population will be anything between 9.5 and 13.3 billion.
Africa’s population growth is due to persistent high levels of fertility and the recent slowdown in the rate of fertility decline.
The total fertility rate (TFR) has been declining in Africa over the past decade, but has been doing so at roughly one-quarter of the rate at which it declined in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1970s.
In some African countries, the TFR decline appears to have stalled.
For example, in Nigeria, the continent’s most-populous country, the high fertility rate would result in a more than fourfold projected increase in total population by 2100 from 182 million to 752 million people.
Director Wilmoth said although there is considerable uncertainty about these future trends, there is a 90 per cent chance Nigeria’s population will exceed 439 million people in 2100, which is nearly 2.5 times its current size.
Looking more closely at the global projections, he continued that Asia, with a current population of 4.4 billion, is likely to remain the most populous continent.
Its population is expected to peak around the middle of the century at 5.3 billion, and then decline to 4.9 billion people by the end of the century.