The world's population will rise to 11.2 billion by 2100 from the current 7.6 billion, latest projections put out by the United Nations (UN) population division suggest. A billion have been added since 2005, and another billion are likely to be added by 2030 according to this forecast.
India's population, currently estimated at 1.34 billion, is projected to rise to 1.51 billion by 2030 and further to 1.66 billion by 2050 before declining to 1.52 billion by century-end. Although China is currently the world's most populous country with 1.41 billion, in 2024 both countries will have about 1.44 billion each. After that, India's population will continue to grow while the Chinese population will remain stable till the 2030s and then decline.
According to the projections, nine countries led by India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, the United States, Uganda and Indonesia will account for more than half the growth in global population between now and in 2050.
While fertility rates are dipping globally, some regions like Africa see a much lower decline from 5.1 to 4.7 while in Asia it has fallen from 2.4 to 2.2. Europe has seen an increase in fertility from 1.4 births per woman in 2000-2005 to 1.6 in 2010-2015.
However, this is still below the "replacement level" of fertility that is taken as 2.1 births per woman. The replacement rate is the birth rate at which a population exactly replaces itself in one generation without any migration. If fertility rate was just half a child more than what is assumed for every country, global population will reach 10.8 billion in 2050 instead of the projected 9.77 billion and 16.5 billion in 2100 instead of 11.18 billion. Conversely, just half a child less than assumed now would mean world population would be just 7.3 billion in 2100.
Compared to 2017, the number of persons aged 60 or above is expected to more than double by 2050 and more than triple by 2100. The report also points out that 51 countries are expected to show declining populations between 2017 and 2050.
