Against Expected Baby Boom
OpenLife Nigeria has gathered that against the much expected baby production boom in the lockdown orchestrated by COVID-19 pandemic, survey reveals that birthrates are declining globally.
According to data obtained from World Economic Forum WEF, blog, the opposite occurred in many countries.
Most children these days are wanted or planned children, especially in the developed world. Deciding to have a baby is contingent on being optimistic about the future – and optimism is difficult to muster during a global pandemic.
The Brookings Institute estimates that 300,000 babies were not born in the US as a result of economic insecurity related to the pandemic.
In many countries and against expected birth rates, there has suppressed population growth by causing a decline in births, migration and life expectancy.
Even before the pandemic, urbanization was driving population decline. The world population as of June 18, 2021 stood at 7,872,261,878.
Of this figure, births per day stood at 382,865 while deaths per day stood at 163,925.
According to statistics, the Chinese Government announced, at the end of May, that parents in China would now be permitted to have up to three children.
This announcement came only five years after the stunning reversal of the 1980 one-child policy which resulted into China’s fertility collapse.
The latest census released in May indicates that China is losing roughly 400,000 people every year. China, reputed with the highest population in the world, still claims its population is growing, but even if these projections are taken at face value, the population decline previously projected to start by midcentury may now begin as early as 2030.
This means China could lose between 600 and 700 million people from its population by 2100.
China’s population changes are not unique among the superpowers.
According to the United States’ most recent census, the US birthrate has declined for six straight years and 19% since 2007 in total.
Like China, the US birthrate is now well below replacement rate at 1.6. (China is now at 1.3.)
For a country to naturally replace its population, its birthrate needs to be at least 2.1.
Among low low-fertility countries is the world’s second-most populous country, India, with a birthrate at replacement rate (2.1).
Japan is 1.3, Russia 1.6, Brazil 1.8, Bangladesh 1.7 and Indonesia 2.0.
There are still big countries with high birthrates, such as Pakistan (3.4) and Nigeria (5.1). But even these numbers are lower than they were in 1960 – when Pakistan was at 6.6 and Nigeria at 6.4 – and declining every year.
Most people agree that population increases will continue, but there are arguments about the rate of increase, and even a few people who believe population decreases are likely.
The United Nations has gradually been revising its predictions downwards, and now believes that the world population in 2050 will be around 9 billion.
It believes that, as the world grows steadily richer and the average family size decreases, growth will steadily slow and eventually stop.
However, others believe that poverty, inequality and continued urbanization will encourage steadily increasing growth, particularly in countries in Africa and parts of Asia, where growth is already much higher than the global average.
A few scientists even believe that populations will decrease.
Some believe that gradual increases in living standards will result in similar patterns to those in Western Europe, where birth rates are declining rapidly.
Others believe that the current world population is unsustainable, and predict that humanity will simply not be able to produce enough food and oil to feed itself and sustain our industrial economy.
The rate of population growth was highest in 1970, around 2% growth per year, before declining in 1980.
The 80’s brought a slight stagnant rise in the population growth rate, but in the 1990’s, the rate of population growth dropped down to less than 1.5% and has been declining throughout the 2000’s.
The annual growth rate of the world population in 2019 was around 1.1% and it was predicted to decrease even more in the next few decades, continuing the trend of slower population growth.
The World population is projected at 7.79 billion or 7,795 million as of July 1, 2020. There are 3.93 billion males and 3.86 billion females living on earth.
Two hundred years ago, the world population was just over one billion. Since then the number of people on the planet grew more than 7-fold to 7.7 billion in 2019.
The three least populated countries in the world are Vatican City, an enclave in the city of Rome in Italy, Monaco, a principality on the Mediterranean coast and an enclave within Southern France, and Nauru, a tiny island country in Micronesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.
WORLD POPULATION IN 2050
What will the world look like in 2050? The world’s population 30 years from now may look more different than we expect.
According to World Population Prospects, the global population in 2050 will be around 9.77 billion people, which is 2 billion more than what the current population is today.
In terms of each country’s population growth, India is expected to surpass China as the most populated country in the world by 2050.
India’s growth rate is 1.08% while China, the most populated country in the world at the moment, has a growth rate of only 0.35%.
By 2050, India’s population will hit 1.66 billion people, and China will come in second place with a population of 1.36 billion.
The United States currently is the third most populated country in the world, but is expected to drop to fourth most populated by 2050.
Instead, fast-growing Nigeria will become the third most populated country by 2050 with its current growth rate of 2.6%.
Nigeria’s population will be around 410 million by 2050 while the US in 2050 will have about 390 million people.
Vatican City is predicted to continue being the least populated country in the world in 2050.
It currently has a negative growth rate and is predicted to have 800 people by 2050.
Trends are pointing towards the most populated countries reaching their capacities and slowing down their population growths.
Meanwhile, less populated countries with developing industries and technologies will see a boom in population growth, which are similar factors that allowed the recent growth of India and China in the last century.
World Population History (5000 B.C. – 2020 A.D.)
Throughout most of history, the world’s population has been much smaller than it is now.
Before the invention of agriculture, for example, the human population was estimated to be around 15 million people at most.
The introduction of agriculture and the gradual movement of humanity into settled communities saw the global population increase gradually to around 300 million by AD 0.
The Roman Empire, which many regard as one of the strongest empires the world has ever seen, probably contained only around 50 million people at its height; that’s less than the number of people in England today.
It wasn’t until the early 19th century that the world population reached its first big milestone: 1 billion people.
Then, as the industrial revolution took hold and living standards improved, the rate of population growth increased considerably.
After hundred years, the population of the world doubled, reaching 2 billion in the late 1920s.
The 20th century, however, is where population growth really took off, and over the past 100 years, the planet’s population has more than tripled in size. This massive increase in human population is largely due to improvements in diet, sanitation and medicine, especially compulsory vaccination against many diseases.
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