Population Continues to Grow
At the beginning of the 20th century, the world’s population was approximately 1.5 billion; by 1960 it had doubled; and by late 1999, it had quadrupled to 6 billion. The global population is unlikely ever again to grow as fast as it has in the last few decades and particularly the past 12 years, in which a billion people were added.
Annual additions to the global population rose from 47 million per year in 1950-1955 to a peak of 86 million in 1985-1990. This unprecedented growth was the net result of faster declines in mortality than in fertility, both from initially high levels. As a consequence, the fourth, fifth and sixth billion marks in global population were achieved in only 14, 13 and 12 years, respectively.
However, this rapid growth of the world population is a recent phenomenon in the history of the world. It is estimated that 2000 years ago the population of the world was about 300 million. For a very long time the world population did not grow significantly, with periods of growth followed by periods of decline. It took more than 1600 years for the world population to double to 600 million.
The world population was estimated at 791 million in 1750, with 64% in Asia, 21% in Europe and 13% in Africa. Northern America was still nearly empty. By 1900, 150 years later, the world population had only slightly more than doubled, to 1.7 billion. The major growth had been in Europe, whose share had increased to 25%, and in Northern America and in Latin America, whose share had increased to 5% each. Meanwhile the share of Asia had decreased to 57% and that of Africa to 8%. The growth of the world population accelerated after 1900, with 2.5 billion in 1950, a 53% increase in 50 years.
The rapid growth of the world population started in 1950, with a sharp reduction in mortality in the less developed regions, resulting in an estimated population of 6.1 billion in the year 2000, nearly two-and-a-half times the population in 1950. With the declines in fertility in most of the world, the global growth rate of population has been decreasing since its peak of 2.0% in 1965-1970. In 1998, the world’s population stands at 5.9 billion and is growing at 1.3% per year, or an annual net addition of 78 million people.
According to the ‘medium’ population growth estimates and projections of the United Nations, by 2050 the world is expected to have 8.9 billion people, an increase of slightly less than half from the 2000 population. By then the share of Asia will have stabilised at 59%, that of Africa will have more than doubled, to 20%, and that of Latin America nearly doubled, to 9%. Meanwhile the share of Europe will decline to 7%, less than one third its peak level. While in 1900 the population of Europe was three times that of Africa, in 2050 the population of Africa will be nearly three times that of Europe.
The world population will continue to grow after 2050. Indeed, long-range population projections by the United Nations indicate population growth well into the 22nd century.
