The UN has their latest world population projections.
Overall Annual Global Deaths Will Double Over the Next 60 Years
The overall level of absolute annual deaths will be increasing from 60 million per year to about 80 million by 2050 and 100 million by 2070. The annual global death rate will average an increase by 1 million per year now to 2080.
The projections assume that countries with over 77 years of life expectancy may add 3-7 years of life expectancy by 2050. This assumption could be incorrect if aging reversal technology is developed and widely deployed. The longest-lived countries could reach life expectancy of about 90 without major medical breakthroughs.
Most of the developed world will have 25%+ people over 65 by 2050-2070. This would be higher if there is aging reversal technology but in that case those people would have the health and vitality of younger people.
If the fertility rate stabilized at about 1 without radical antiaging then there would be a halving of the population based about 1.5 times the life expectancy after the population increase flattened. This halving or near halving of the total national population is what is expected for Japan, China, Italy and Russia. This is based upon 20-50 years of low birthrates and fertility rates. It was how much below the 2.1 fertility rates countries fall.
Japan is expected to drop from a population peak of 128 million into the range of 60-70 million around 2100.
China is expected to drop from a population peak of around 1.4-1.45 billion down into the 750 million range around 2100.
The decline would not stop if the fertility rates stayed that low.
The countering to the ultra-long term effect is that as the low birth and low fertility people rapidly shrink themselves then the higher birth rate families will become more statistically dominant.
Think of a petri dish where you hit a bacterial colony with something that kills 90% of the population. The remaining population is immune and the colony size is restored in a few bacterial generations.
Humanity will have a future which will be full of the descendants of people who keep breeding live and keep breeding.
Birth Rates and Other Factors
They will print specific numbers for 2050 and 2100 but then they will include charts and graphs which show the large uncertainty out in 2100 and significant uncertainty in 2050. There is also uncertainty for estimates of todays population and figures from a decade ago or more.
There are many countries in Africa that have not performed any kind of proper census or count for decades. There have been claims that China has lied and distorted some of its census figures.
It is clear that birthrates are dropping and most of the developed world has peaked in population via births. There are countries like Canada and Australia which have aggressive immigration policies. Canada was able to increase its population by nearly 1 million from 38.5 to 39.4 million people in 2022 by immigrating in 400,000 people and having semi-permenant residency for another 300,000 people.
Most African countries are doubling their population from now to 2050.
Pakistan doubled its population from 1990 to 2022 and may get close to doubling again by 2050.
Indonesia should add more than 50% to its population.
Africa, south Asia and the middle east are the last main areas of significant population growth via birth rate.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
