Visualization of Future Population Growth

After the world population increased more than 400% over the 20th century, population growth has slowed considerably: The fastest world population growth rate was already reached in the late 1960s, and it has been falling since. While the world population increased by 2% annually in the late 60s it has now slowed to an increase of just about 1%.

 

There are three primary determinants of global population growth: mortality, fertility, and population momentum. The global improvement falling mortality – seen in increasing life expectancy around the world and falling child mortality in every country – contribute to an increase of the world population. The decline of fertility rates on the other hand, – the number of children per woman – reduces population growth. The global average fertility rate was 5 children per woman until the end of the 1960s and has halved since then.

 

The UN projections for the global population growth rates, which have been produced since the 1950s, have a good track record in projecting the size of the global population as we will show in the last part of this entry....

 

Population growth is driven by three different factors: mortality, fertility, and population momentum...

 

What matters for the size of the world population is fertility not mortatlity...