HOW GLOBAL POPULATIONS REACHED ITS CURRENT LEVEL
It took 200,000 years for our human population to reach 1 billion—and only 200 years to reach 7 billion. But growth has begun slowing, as women have fewer babies on average. When will our global population peak? And how can we minimize our impact on Earth’s resources, even as we approach 11 billion?
POPULATION GROWTH IS NOW DECLINING
After the world population increased more than 400% over the 20th century, population growth has slowed considerably. Over the course of the 21st century world population will likely only rise by 50% and reach around 11 billion by 2100. Peak world population growth rate was already reached in the late 1960s, and it has been falling since.
AGEING POPULATION
People older than age 65 will make up a larger and larger percentage of the population in many countries.
TRENDS BY COUNTRY
China
Five countries may have more than a million centenarians each by 2100. China is forecast to get there first in 2069, 90 years after its one-child policy was implemented.
India
Between 2000 and 2050, India's old-age dependency ratio will go from 13% to 33%.
United States
Census figures show that by 2030 there will be only three working adults to support every elderly person in the U.S. Within the next 20 years, the number of elderly people in the U.S. will double.
Germany
In Germany, there could be a transition from the "baby boom" to the "baby bust" generation in the next 15 years, which will shift the balance in the public pensions system.
WHAT RISKS LIE AHEAD?
Climate Change
Climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050. By 2050, impacts of climate change on mortality are projected to be the greatest in south Asia.
Rapid population ageing is putting significant pressure on health and social care systems and threatening the financial sustainability of some public and corporate pension arrangements.
Developments associated with health and wellbeing (underpinned by developments in biotechnology and cognitive neuroscience) will lead to people living longer.
The adoption of biological monitors and predictive diagnostics tools to proactively manage health can be expected to help enable greater use of an ageing workforce.
Technologies that improve life-long health and wellbeing will lower the incidence of chronic conditions.
Pollution, appropriate housing, affordable health care in some cases, an ageing population, will challenge infrastructure.
Rising health care costs-driven by population growth, more elderly patients, and the prevalence of obesity and non-communicable diseases-are projected to intensify over the next 15 years.
Asia is expected to show high growth rate in healthcare IT market in next few years due to rise in ageing population.
Smart rugs can monitor the gait of the independent elderly to recognize potential balance problems or predict falls.
There will be a dramatic increase in demand for personal care workers of various kinds to cope with the health and acuity issues facing aging Baby Boomers.
Care providers around the world will come from India.
Technological and medical measures to maintain the elderly in their own homes and in retirement residences will expand dramatically.
Due to an ageing doctor workforce and a foreseeable increase in demand a shortage of doctors is projected for Germany in the future.
As Thailand ages the service sector could be a future engine of growth.
Brain health will be among the most important determinants of social and economic well-being of older persons in the future.
Health care costs will grow faster than prices over the long term causing rising taxes to affect more people over time.
The medical wearable devices market is expected to grow over 16% by 2023 thanks to seniors with more money to spend on technology to ease their chronic pain and diabetes.
Home health monitoring device shipments will top 28 million by 2021.
Population growth, ageing societies, and changing disease patterns are expected to drive greater demand for well-trained health workers in the next 15 years.
Infrastructure
Locating developments for older people within existing urban environments will be a key challenge for the planning system.
Implications
Finances
For host countries with ageing populations and a shrinking workforce, migration could alter the age distribution in a way that may strengthen fiscal sustainability
Growing indebtedness poses a threat to retirement security.
Health insurance, pensions and other provisions will need to be recalibrated in an era where the pace of technological and organisational change is outstripping the ability of both labour markets and the capacity of government to respond.
America's future retirees together have $7.7 trillion less in savings than they will need to retire with dignity.
The Social Security trust funds for old-age benefits and disability insurance could be depleted in 2034.
Britain's changing demographics will mean a huge shift in demand for legal services.
Work
People living longer lives in health means that they will work longer.
Employers are going to need to be ready to accept new realities and adopt new practices to accommodate workers of all ages.
People living longer lives in health means that they will work longer.
Swedes will have to work until they reach the ripe old age of 75 and even longer for the Swedish economy to stay afloat.
Technologies
The next generation of home-care robots, for instance, could use visual cues such as tears, audio signals such as extended silence or barely audible speech, and physiological signs such as lowered temperature and raised blood pressure to assess moods among the elderly and cheer them up.
Self-driving cars could help fill the gaps in public transportation by helping to increase mobility for the elderly.
Exoskeletons and health assistants could assist seniors to live more normal and at home lives.
- By 2040, the world's population will have reached 9 billion and global GDP will have more than doubled.
- More than 40 countries are expected to decrease their population between 2015 and 2050.
- Japan is forecasted to lose almost a third of its working population over the next 50 years.
- Italy will have more than 2 million (or 8 percent) fewer workers in 2040 relative to current levels.
- By 2020, the majority of the world's middle class population will be located in the Asia Pacific region.
- By 2035, almost 80% of the world's population is projected to be in Asia and Africa.
- Africa, which contains 27 of the world's 48 least developed countries, will be the only major area still experiencing substantial population growth after 2050. Consequently, its share of the global population is forecast to rise to 25% in 2050 and 39% by 2100.
- China's population is expected to be overtaken by India (1.3 billion) within the next seven years.
- Older Americans who describe themselves as lonely have a 45 percent greater risk of dying-and that the populationof over-65 adults in the United States is projected to double in the next 15 years.
- By 2050, 22 percent of the global population will be 60 or older.
- In 2050, the global population of older adults 65 and older is projected to be 2.5 times that of the population of children ages 0-4.
- The world population is expected to reach 8.6 billion in 2035 and 10.9 billion in 2100.
- The collective working-age population of the world's advanced economies will decline for the first time since 1950.
- By 2060 whites will see their numbers decline for the first time in American history.
- The recent wave of migrants will add 2% to the German population and boost the labour force over time.
- By 2050 Brazil will have 70 million people over 60.
- It is predicted that by 2050, Nigeria's population will surpass that of the US, making the west African nation the third most populous country in the world.
Urban/Rural
- By 2030, the current urban population of 3.6 billion will rise to five billion.
- The urban population of the developing world is expected to double between 2000 and 2030.
- Over 85 percent of the world's population will likely live in a city by the end of the 21st century.
- The rural population of the world has grown slowly since 1950 and is projected to peak in a few years.
- The global rural population is now almost 3.4 billion and expected to decline to 3.2 billion by 2050.
- Over the next 40 years, Asia's urban population is projected to increase from 1.9 billion to 3.2 billion.
- In 2035, 60% of the world's population will be in cities.
- By 2030, a billion Chinese people will be city dwellers.
Nutrition
- The share of the total population in countries that is food insecure is projected to fall from 17 percent in 2016 to 6 percent in 2026.
- Global demand for food is projected to slow as the rate of population growth declines to one per cent per annum over the course of the decade.
- By 2030, almost half the world's population will live in areas suffering severe water stress.
- The impacts of water efficiency will mute the demand impacts of increased population growth.
- 11% of the world's population will be vulnerable to micronutrient deficiencies by 2050 if there is not a shift in fishery management practices.
- The share of the total population in countries that is food insecure is projected to fall from 17 percent in 2016 to 6 percent in 2026.
Communications
- Approximately 2.34 billion people, or 32.0% of the global population and 68.3% of internet users, will access a social network regularly in 2016, up 9.2% from 2015.
- In the United States the share of the population using the Internet will increase from 83% today to 87% by 2017.
- Half the world's population is expected to be online by 2019.
- There will be 5.5 billion people using mobile devices by 2020.
- Smartphones are projected to reach around 80% of the world's population by 2020.
- More than 70 percent of the U.S. population will have a mobile smartphone by 2019.
Implications
- Japan could lose more than a third of its population over the next 50 years and the working population has contracted by 6 per cent over the past decade.
- Countries like China worry that a shortage of available fish could trigger instability among its growing population.
- Labour markets will need to add 600 million new jobs by 2026 to accommodate changing global demographics.
- Japan's labour force could drop by about 40% come 2060.
- A rising labor-force-participation rate of women could increase the working population and reduce the nonworking population.
- By 2051, religiously unaffiliated Americans could comprise as large a percentage of the population as
- Protestants-which would have been unimaginable just a few decades ago.
- Up to 2030 the world will need to build the equivalent of a city of 1 million people every five days.
- Meat consumption will have doubled by 2050 as emerging countries switch to more opulent diets.
- Nearly every city in India faces waste management challenges that are only expected to grow along with rising population and affluence.
- By 2017, Baby Boomers will control 70 percent of America's disposable income.
Sources:
Shaping Tomorrow