The population of the world, long expected to stabilize just above nine billion in the middle of the century, will instead keep growing and may hit 10,1 billion by 2100, the United Nations projected in a report it issued Tuesday.
Growth in Africa remains so high that the population there could more than triple (tredobles) in this century, rising to 3,6 billion from one billion today, the report says – a sobering forecast for a continent already struggling to provide food and water for its people.
But there is a qualifier. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which released the figures in its 2010 Revision of World Population Prospects, said it was just the medium variant. Variants for low and high fertility countries also were considered.
The high variant, just half a statistical child above the medium variant, projected a world population of 10,6 billion in 2050 and 15,8 billion in 2100.
The low variant, half a child below the medium, produced a population projection of 8,1 billion people in 2050 but declined towards the second half of this century to reach 6.2 billion in 2100.
UNFPA Director Hania Zlotnik said:
– Stabilization of the population does not seem to us as very probable at this moment. Nations face a delicate balance between high fertility and booming populations, which strain food and other resources, and low fertility, which leads to aging populations and stress on social services, as some European states are already finding.
– All countries are going to age if their populations are not to explode even more than they are exploding now, Zlotnik noted.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
