In November of 2022, the world officially reached a human population of 8 billion people.
China remains the world’s most populous country, though India is close to passing them. Both countries have over 1.4 billion people.
The United States remains in a distant 3rd place, though its growth remains slow and buoyed only by immigration.
Meanwhile, the population of certain countries has been declining due to low birth rates and restrictions on immigration.
8 Billion People: How We’ve Grown
The world’s population growth was about 0.83% in 2022. That growth rate is not stagnant, nor is it driven by people having more kids.
Instead, global fertility rates have been steadily falling. Instead, global health standards have risen sharply over the past few centuries.
In 1800, the average global life expectancy was 29 years. This dismal figure was due to high infant mortality, rampant infectious disease, and poor nutrition for large swaths of the population.
Now, global life expectancy sits at 73 years. Even when COVID-19 ravaged the globe, its death toll was a far cry from plagues of history due to improved sanitation across the board.
The Healthiest Countries in the World
While just about every country is better off today than it was 200 years ago, the benefits of good health are not equally distributed.
The top 5 healthiest countries are Spain, Italy, Iceland, Japan, and Switzerland.
All of these countries are relatively wealthy, allowing their citizens to benefit from access to plentiful food and healthcare.
The 5 least healthy countries (Sierra Leone, the Central African Republic, Chad, Somalia, and South Sudan) are all countries with high levels of instability and poverty.
Nutritious food and medical care aren’t consistently available, and the options that do exist are out of reach for many of their citizens.
As a result, citizens of Spain have life expectancies of 84 years while citizens of Sierra Leone live only 44 years. Both of these figures are averages, but they paint a clear picture.
Combining health figures with population growth pictures tells an interesting tale.
By and large, the healthiest countries now have low or negative population growth. These countries are mostly located in Europe.
Meanwhile, countries with the highest growth rates also have the worst health outcomes. Most of these countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Labor shortages in European countries may come to be filled by migrants from African countries in the coming decades.
In fact, increased migration between countries has already been observed. In 1960, global migration represented 2.6% of all people.
Today, that number of migrants has risen to 3.3% of all people.
The percentage change may seem small, but it amounts to 165 million more migrants today than there were in 1960.
Where the World Population Will Grow and Decline
Declines in population will prompt labor shortages, but migration won’t be the only solution for developed economies.
Longer lives lead to increased capital. Workers who live longer tend to be more productive because they have time to develop more skills and education.
If economies change their measures of success from growth to quality of life, then a declining population can also be a net good for society.
Politically, many countries are resistant to the idea of allowing too many immigrants through their borders.
Meanwhile, remittances from abroad aren’t Sub-Saharan Africa’s only opportunity to increase their incomes.
The region’s population is expected to double by 2050. Their effective labor growth rate will outpace that of Europe and the America’s over the next few decades.
The difficulty of implementing sustainable growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is that many of its countries suffer from political instability.
This instability comes from a long history of exploitation and will require intentional and targeted measures to address.
Poverty alleviation has come a long way in the past several decades, but there’s still more to do in regions like Sub-Saharan Africa.
In Conclusion
Their rapid growth rate is leading experts to predict that the 9 billionth baby is only 15 years away from being born.
After that, the UN predicts the global population will peak in 2080 at 10.4 billion before environmental and demographic challenges push the global population back down.
While much of the future remains uncertain, there’s a lot to be hopeful for in the world today. Today’s humans are living longer, healthier lives than their ancestors.
Learn more about the 8 billion people on the planet in the infographic below:
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