After peaking in 2064 at some 9.7 billion people, the world’s population will decline to about 8.8 billion by 2100, according to a new study from the University of Washington School of Medicine.
That century-ending figure is about two billion lower than many other analyses have predicted.
The key factors that will shrink population are the education of women and girls and the more widespread availability of cheap contraception, the study says.
Using data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017, researchers projected global, regional, and national populations and modeled migration patterns and birth and death rates.
By 2100, 183 of 195 countries will have birth rates below 2.1 births per woman, the rate at which the population holds steady, the study says.
The model also foresees 2.37 billion individuals over 65 years globally in 2100, compared with 1.7 billion under 20 years. People over 80 will outnumber toddlers two to one.
“The 21st century will see a revolution in human civilization,” said Richard Horton, editor of the medical journal The Lancet, which published the study. “Africa and the Arab World will shape our future, while Europe and Asia will recede in their influence. By the end of the century, the world will be multipolar, with India, Nigeria, China, and the U.S. the dominant powers.”
TRENDPOST: The study foreshadows a shrinking workforce-age population, greater demands on health care systems and social support services, and geopolitical power shifting toward countries with younger populations and larger workforces able to maintain robust GDPs.
Countries will liberalize their immigration policies and offer incentives to attract and keep younger workers from other countries as nations compete to maintain their labor forces. New technologies will become urgent national priorities to take the place of human labor.
