Demography: more than eight billion humans will soon have to live together on Earth by the end of 2022

Many lessons to be learned from the latest data published this Monday, July 11 by the UN. Humans have never been so numerous and they will be more tomorrow. The planet Earth will have more than 8 billion inhabitants by the end of the year, the UN announced on Monday, publishing, on the occasion of World Population Day, enlightening demographic data. One billion more in barely twelve years The threshold of 8 billion inhabitants will be crossed from November 15, 2022, according to forecasts published Monday by the United Nations. That is one billion more people on the planet than in 2010, two billion more than in 1998 and five and a half billion more than in 1950. This is “a reminder of our shared responsibility to take care of our planet and a moment to reflect on where we still fall short of our commitments to each other,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. Why such a trend The number of deaths has risen by 12% worldwide, under the effect of the pandemic, according to the UN and the WHO, i.e. an excess mortality of 14.9 million people attributed to Covid-19 for the year 2020 alone. But not enough to call into question the demographic growth to date, driven, in particular, by the progress of science. Enormous changes have taken place at the same time, whether in fertility rates or life expectancy. In the early 1970s, each woman had an average of 4.5 children. In 2014, the global fertility rate dropped to around 2.5 children per woman. It is 2.3 today and is expected to drop to 2.2 in 2050. But individuals of childbearing age will increase in number. And, at the same time, the average global life expectancy has increased, from 64.8 years in the early 1990s to 70 years today. It should rise to 77.1 years in 2050. Acceleration of migrations has been noted at the same time, accompanied by growing urbanization, with a tipping point in 2007, the year when the urban population became larger than the rural population. By 2050, around 66% of the world’s population will live in cities. The ten billion mark already predicted It took hundreds of thousands of years for the world’s population to reach 1 billion, but only 200 years to increase sevenfold. World population is growing, however, at a faster rate. slow since 1950. Could the trend be reversed with a decrease in population by the end of this century? There is a “one in two chance” according to the UN, but its demographers consider “95% sure” the probability of a population between 8.9 and 12.4 billion in 2100. The symbolic cap of ten billion could, to be reached in 2059, before then stabilizing around 10.4 billion people living together on the planet in the 2080s. 7 billion people), 17% in Africa (1.3 billion), 10% in Europe (750 million), 8% in Latin America and the Caribbean (650 million) and the remaining 5% in North America ( 370 million) and in Oceania (43 million). But more than half of the world’s population growth by 2050 will take place in Africa. The population of sub-Saharan Africa, for example, is expected to double by 2050. More than half of the increase in the world’s population is in fact concentrated in just eight countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines and Tanzania. India will become the most populous country in the world China and India remain the most populous countries in the world, with 1.44 billion inhabitants respectively for the first and 1.39 billion for the second, i.e. 19 and 18% of the world’s population. India could, however, become the most populous country in the world next year. A fertility rate at its lowest in Europe The populations of 55 countries or regions in the world are expected to decline by 2050, including 26 countries by at least 10%, predicts the UN. Several countries should even see their demography drop by around 15% over the same period, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, the Republic of Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine. One indicator is closely monitored: the fertility rate, which is now lower in all European countries than the level allowing long-term population renewal, ie an average of 2.1 children per woman.