World population to hit 8bn in 2023, says new UN survey | Global development | The Guardian

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population, global change

> https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jun/21/world-population-to-hit-8bn-in-2023-says-new-un-survey <https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jun/21/world-population-to-hit-8bn-in-2023-says-new-un-survey>
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> World population to hit 8bn in 2023, says new UN survey
> New findings show more men than women and that there will be 1bn over-60s next year for the first time
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> Guardian staffLast modified on Wednesday 21 June 2017 14.52 EDT
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> Half the growth in population will come from nine countries, India among them. Photograph: Punit Paranjpe/AFP/Getty Images
> The world’s population will break through the 8 billion mark in 2023, there are more men than women, and next year the number of over 60s will top 1 billion for the first time, according to the latest findings and forecasts <https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/> from the United Nations annual population survey.
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> More than half of the global population growth by 2050 will come from sub-Saharan Africa, where fertility rates will persist at levels far higher than in the rest of the world, the UN predictions released on Wednesday show.
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> In a big country
> Half the growth in numbers of people will come from just nine countries: India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, the US, Uganda and Indonesia. By 2050 seven of the world’s 20 most populous nations will be African.
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> By contrast, all European countries now languish with fertility rates below replacement level, meaning that populations will inexorably decline without large-scale immigration.
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> “In some countries with low levels of fertility and ageing populations ... a net inflow of migrants has been the primary source of population growth and in some cases has averted a decline in population size,” noted John Wilmoth, director of the UN’s population division.
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> Eastern Europe is likely to be particularly badly affected by population trends, with numbers likely to fall more than 15% in Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine.
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> The UN study also found that there are more men than women globally (102 men for every 100 women), and that the number of people over 60 will top 1 billion in 2018 – and 2 billion by 2050. Children under 15 years make up about one quarter of the world’s inhabitants.
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> The median age of the world’s population is 30.