eight billion and counting
No, not another of Rachel Reeves’s pre-budget fiscal black holes but the number of people now on Earth, and it’s set to increase further still, at a staggeringly fast rate.
In 10,000BC, a time that roughly marks the beginning of human civilisation when our ancestors were running around in loincloths and extolling the virtues of clay pottery and sharp flint, the world was home to an estimated four million people. By the birth of Christ, that had reached 200 million. Even as recently as 1700, when we were on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution, the world’s population stood at around 600 million, but then it began to explode: hitting six billion in 1999 and seven by 2011.
Population growth has largely been driven by improvements in public health, a rapid decline in infant mortality and childbirth deaths, increasing life-expectancy and the Green Revolution – a massive increase in agricultural production able to support a far greater number. Life expectancy at birth has risen from 32 in 1900 to 47 in 1950, and to 73 in a pre-Covid 2020.
Current predictions, according to the UN, are that we’ll hit ten billion around 2050. More than half of this projected increase is forecast to be concentrated in just eight countries: the DR Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania. This, obvs, poses serious ecological and social challenges. The environmental impact of another two billion people will be vast and has been identified, via associated levels of consumption, as the main driver of rising CO2 emissions. Furthermore, ever since Thomas Malthus’s dire warnings in the late 18th century, many have worried rising numbers would lead to widespread famine and strife over scarce resources. Worryingly, we are now witnessing shortages of food and water across large swathes of the world and are contributing to geopolitical tension in Africa and Asia.
The developed West is experiencing the opposite as populations are ageing and shrinking. In the 60 most economically rich countries the UN forecasts that populations will fall by at least 1% by 2050, with several (Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia and Ukraine) experiencing a decline by as much as 15%. Across Europe, fertility rates are now below the 2.1 child/woman replacement level and in South Korea and Japan the level has dipped below one. Termed the ‘low-fertility trap hypothesis’ this witnesses a declining workforce, slow growth, increased social care and a higher level of pension provision. In short, fewer paying for more. The challenge is to find a demographic ‘goldilocks’ zone: not too many, not too few but a number that’s just right. Not, by anyone’s estimation, an easy situation to achieve.
