Copyright © 2004 Earth Policy
Institute
World Population Grew by 76
Million People in 2004: 3 Million Added in the Industrial
World and 73 Million in the Developing World
Janet Larsen
During 2004, 133 million people
were born and 57 million died, expanding world
population by 76 million. This excess of births over
deaths was concentrated in the developing countries,
which added 73 million people compared with only 3
million in the industrial countries. World population,
growing by 1.2 percent annually, is projected to reach
6.4 billion in 2005. (See Figure 1.)
Just over 1 billion of the
earths inhabitants live in the industrial countries of
Europe, North America, Oceania, and Japan, where
populations are growing on average 0.25 percent a year.
Meanwhile, the other 5.2 billion people live in the less
developed countries, where populations are growing at
1.5 percent annuallysix times as fast.
Six countries account for half the
annual increase in population, and all of these but the
United States are in the developing world. India
accounts for 21 percent of this growth, China 12
percent, Pakistan 5 percent, and Bangladesh, Nigeria,
and the United States 4 percent each.
Chinalong the worlds most populous
countryis likely to cede its top position to India by
2035. In 1968 Chinas annual growth rate peaked at 2.7
percent; by 2004 it had slowed to 0.7 percent. Its
population, now at 1.3 billion, is projected to peak in
2031 at 1.45 billion. Indias population, which is
growing by 1.5 percent annually, is not projected to
peak until 2065 at 1.56 billion people.
It took from the beginning of human
existence until early in the nineteenth century for our
ranks to grow to 1 billion. We reached the second
billion 123 years later, in 1927. Since then, however,
the milestones of each new billion have arrived much
quicker: world population hit 3 billion in 1960, 4
billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1987, and 6 billion in
1999. We will likely hit 7 billion by 2013.
As population grows, the land and
water available per person shrinks. For the human
population to stabilize, family size needs to fall to an
average of two children per couple, known as
replacement-level fertility. In 1950, women around the
world had on average five children during their
lifetimes. Today women in industrial countries give
birth to one or two children on average, while those in
developing countries have more than three. (See Figures 2-4 .)
There are 17 countries where women
bear an average of six or more children. All but two of
them, Afghanistan and Yemen, are in Africa. Women in
Niger, Somalia, Angola, Uganda, Yemen, and Mali have on
average seven or more children. At this rate, each of
these poverty-stricken countries faces another doubling
of population within the next quarter century.
On the other end of the spectrum is
Europe, where women have an average of 1.4 births.
Worldwide, there are more than 60 countries with
fertility at or below replacement level. The smallest
families today are in the Eastern European countries,
Spain and Italy, where women have just one child on
average. Populations in these countries are already
declining or are set to decline by the end of this
decade.
The number of children a woman bears
is largely determined by her education, access to family
planning information and services, economic status, and
cultural environment. Nearly 61 percent of the worlds
married women use some method of family planning to
prevent or to control the timing or spacing of their
pregnancies. Unfortunately, some 201 million women
worldwide want to limit their family size but lack
access to a choice of effective contraception.
The year 2004 was the tenth
anniversary of the landmark International Conference on
Population and Development held in Cairo, Egypt, when
delegates from 179 countries agreed to work toward
universal access to family planning and reproductive
health services by 2015. The participating countries
pledged to invest a combined $17 billion a year by the
turn of the century, with annual donations to increase
to $22 billion. The developing countries promised to put
up two thirds of the total investment, while the more
affluent donor nations agreed to provide the rest.
Although we are now halfway to 2015,
neither developing nor industrial countries have
fulfilled their pledges. Developing countries have at
least met 80 percent of their promised contributions,
but the wealthier donor countries have given only half.
Very few countries have actually paid their bill in
full.
Meeting the needs of the 201 million
women without access to a range of effective family
planning services would cost an estimated $3.9 billion a
year. This annual funding could avert some 52 million
pregnancies, of which some 22 million are ended by
induced abortions. It is rare for such a modest
expenditure to have the potential to achieve such gains.
Not only is meeting these needs a
humanitarian concern, it is also an opportunity for a
large economic dividend. In Bangladesh, for example, the
estimated $62 that the government spends to prevent an
unwanted pregnancy is one tenth what it would otherwise
spend on social services for mother and child. Educating
girls can also reap big payoffs, as added years in
school consistently lead to progressively smaller
families, higher wages, and faster economic growth.
The latest population projections from
the United Nations show somewhat lower population growth
than previously expected, reflecting lower fertility as
well as higher mortality rates related to AIDS. HIV/AIDS
is responsible for lowering life expectancy in a number
of African countries to nearly medieval levels. In
Botswana, where one out of every three adults is
HIV-positive, life expectancy is 40 years. Without AIDS,
it would be 68. Across sub-Saharan Africa, the AIDS
epidemic has reversed life expectancy to 46 years. (See
Figures 5-7.)
While some progress has been made in
developing maternal and child health programs, an infant
born in Africa is 13 times more likely to die before its
first birthday than one born in Europe or North America.
A global comparison of the poorest and richest fifths of
the population shows that the poorest children are twice
as likely to die before the age of five and that the
poorest women are twice as likely to be malnourished.
As people continue to seek better
livelihoods, international migration will remain high in
the coming decades, with about 2 million people moving
to the more developed regions each year. The United
States is the principal destination, with an annual net
average of 1.1 million immigrants. By 2050, this will
add up to 55 million people for the half centurynearly
equal to the population of France.
Populations in cities are growing
about twice as fast as those in the countryside, and in
2007, for the first time ever, urban residents will
outnumber rural populations. The group of city dwellers
is likely to swell to 5 billion by 2030, while rural
numbers are projected to change little. Indeed, most of
the population growth of the next several decades will
come in cities in developing countries.
U.N. projections of world population
growth show several potential trajectories. The
low-fertility scenario has population peaking at 7.5
billion by 2040 and then falling to 7.4 billion in 2050.
The medium-growth scenario has the world hitting 8.9
billion by mid-century, with growth slowing until
population peaks at 9.2 billion around 2075. The
high-growth variant brings us to 10.6 billion by 2050
and 14 billion by the end of the century. (See Figure 8.)
With water and land in limited supply,
whether we move toward the higher or lower number may
have more influence on future environmental and social
stability than anything else we do. The most humane way
to achieve the low-level projections is to improve
health and social conditions to promote population
stabilization through reduced birth rates, not to allow
death rates to climb as a result of negligence.
ADDITIONAL
DATA
Figure
1: World Population, Annual Addition,
and Growth Rate, 1950 to 2000, with Projection to
2050
Figure
2: World Average Fertility Rate, 1950 to 2000, with Projection
to 2050
Figure
3: Total Fertility Rate and Population by Region, 2003
Figure
4:Total Fertility Rate in the Developed World and the
Developing World graph
table
Figure
5: Life Expectancy by Continent, 1950
to 2000, with Projection to 2050
Figure
6: World Average Life Expectancy, 1950 to 2000, with Projection to
2050
Figure
7: Life Expectancy at Birth in
Botswana, 1950 to 2000, with Projection to
2050
Figure
8: World Population, 1950 to 2000,
with Projections to 2050 graph
table
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