Prior to COVID, many projections had the world's population plateauing sometime in the second half of the 21st century. This is expected to happen because about half of the world's population now lives in a country where the fertility rate is less than the replacement rate of 2.1 children for every woman. See above chart from
At the start of the pandemic, there was talk of a possible COVID baby boom. People were/are stuck at home and so that would surely translate into more sex among partners. But that doesn't appear to have been the case for many countries. According to The Economist, births fell by 15% in China last year. The same drop was recorded in the United States last year between February and November.
Because of this trend, the above projections are now being adjusted and pulled forward, with some predicting that the world's population could plateau as early as the 2050s. That's only about 30 years from now, which means that quite a few of us could end up living in a world with a declining population. This is likely to have both positive and negative consequences.
There are nearly 8 billion people in the world today with China and India being the countries with the greatest numbers. But it's interesting to consider how recent this figure really is (compounding takes time to gain momentum).
The world didn't hit a billion people until the 19th century, and the second billion was only reached by the 1920s, which in the grand scheme of things, isn't that long ago. Since then the global population has exploded with about 6 billion people being added in only the last 100 years. That's pretty wild when you think about it.
P.S. I recently discovered a site called outline.com. It allows you to read, highlight, and annotate articles that you find online. But it also seems to allow you to read articles behind paywalls. Perhaps some of you will find that useful.
Chart: The Economist
The National Center of Health Statistics just released this update on births and birth rates for the United States in 2017. The provisional number of births last year was 3,853,472, which represents a 2% reduction from 2016 and the lowest number in 30 years. The general fertility rate was 60.2 births per 1,000 women aged 15-44, which represents a 3% reduction from 2016. Also a record low.
Here is a chart from the report showing birth rates for selected age ranges from 1990 to 2016 (the 2017 numbers are provisional):
Many of the age ranges have remained stable. Notable are the decline in the teenage (15-19) birth rate and the increase in births to women aged 40-44. The teenage birth rate declined 7% from 2016 and has averaged a decline of nearly 8% a year since 2007. And the birth rate for women aged 40-44 has generally been rising since 1982.
I am sure that you can all think of many explanations for the above phenomena without even diving into the report. I find all of this relevant because demographics obviously impact the real estate business and how we build cities.
The United Nations recently released its 2015 version of World Population Prospects. It looks as if they put out and revise this report every 5 years.
The Economist then took some of their data and assembled it into the following charts:
It’s obviously extremely difficult to predict what will happen in the world by 2100, but to the extent that forecasting is possible, the world’s population is expected to reach somewhere around 11.2 billion people. Today it’s 7.3 billion.
The bulk of this growth is expected to happen first in Africa, and then in Asia. By 2100, Africa’s share of the global population is expected to grow to 39% and Asia’s share is expected to decline to 44%.
If you’ve been following population trends, most of this shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. The meaningful population growth happening in the world today is happening in the developing world.
That’s why architects, such as Rem Koolhaas, have been studying cities like Lagos (Nigeria) since the late 1990s and early 2000s. Below is a photo from a book/research project that I love called Mutations (2000). I pulled it from my bookshelf this morning.
It’s interesting to think about what all of this will mean for the global economy and for global governance.
The United States is about to be alone when it comes to advanced economies with a globally competitive population. Europe is shrinking, which leads me to believe that a strong EU is likely important. And we now have lots of megalopolises with big populations, but with very low income levels.
Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa, but per capita income is somewhere around $3,000.
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