Population is growing across the globe – but unevenly and often where you wouldn’t expect it

Along with this is also a drastic increase in the elderly population. How do we use this shift positively for the good of humankind?

We should all recognise how much demography is driving the shift and figure out ways to turn this into a positive outcome for all (Tong Son)

The world’s population will keep growing for the next 50 years or so, growing from its present 7.7 billion to 8.5 billion in 2030; then 9.7 billion in 2050 onto 10.9 billion in 2100. But – and this is really important – it is growing at a slower pace than previously expected.

These numbers come from the new United Nations World Population Prospects, which are updated every two years. The UN has become really good at this. Back in the early 1990s it was projecting that there would be between 7.5 billion and 8 billion people in the world in 2020 – so what has happened has turned out to be pretty much dead centre of the range. Obviously the further you look forward the wider the possible range of outcomes, but for 2050 at least we can have a lot of confidence in their estimates. I think their broader expectation that population will have peaked by 2100 will turn out to be right too.

For anyone who wants to dig into the data, the highlights of these new projections are here and the more detailed numbers are here. But, looking to 2050 rather than beyond, these are what seem to me to be the five key points.