un population prediction

U.N. Raises “Low” Population Projection for 2050

Photo courtesy Jim Davidson

The United Nations says the industrialized world will average 1.64 children per woman between 2005 and 2010, compared to a projected low of 1.35 given in the 2006 assessment.The United Nations has raised its optimistic "low" estimate of world population growth due to an increase in childbirths in some industrialized nations.

In a biennial report released last week, the U.N. Population Division increased slightly a projection it uses to forecast the size of the human population. The "low-variant" scenario of population growth now foresees 117 million more people on the planet in 2050 than it did two years ago.

While the "median-variant" scenario, often seen as "most likely," remains almost the same as before - predicting a world with 9.2 billion people by mid-century, up from nearly 6.8 billion today - the earlier low projection did not anticipate jumps in fertility in Europe and the United States [PDF].

U.N. demographers selected a high, medium, and low fertility rate in 2006 to estimate how many children would be born between the years 2005 and 2010. Three years later, the analysis concluded that the low fertility rate was too optimistic, according to Hania Zlotnik, director of the Population Division.

"[The difference] is tiny, but it affects how we think of the path over time. The more-developed regions are not losing population by 2050; they're maintaining their population size," Zlotnik said. "The high won't be as high and the low won't be as low just because of that change."

The revised projection has implications for the timing of the possible stabilization and reduction of world population, a target that is now pushed back a few years under the most hopeful of scenarios.

The United Nations expects nearly 8 billion people on Earth by 2050 in its low population estimate, according to the study [PDF].

The high projection, however, foresees some 10.5 billion people - a 295 million person decrease from the previous high projection. The medium projection is 9.2 billion people, about 41 million less than previously reported [PDF].