There are 7.8 billion people that live on the Earth. While the global population continues to grow at about 82 million people annually, this is still largely due to the strong population growth seen in sub-Saharan Africa, which will double its population by 2050. But growth at a global level is increasingly slowing down.
Therefore, while the UN and other think tanks previously predicted a population explosion, and possible overpopulation on the planet, now it is more frequently possible to run across forecasts that are diametrically opposed to that. For example, according to several recent studies, the world’s population over the second half of this century will just keep declining, from 9.7 billion in 2064 to 8.8 billion by the end of the century.
The Lancet indicates that the global fertility rate will decline by almost one third by 2100. In 23 countries (including Japan, Thailand, Spain, and Ukraine), the population will decrease by half, and in another 34 countries it will decrease by 25-50%. The study indicates that Japan’s population most likely reached its peak at 128 million in 2017, and will drop to below 53 million by 2100. As for Italy, for example, during that same period its population will decline from 61 million to 28 million people.
In the United States, due to the ongoing sharp decline in American incomes, there has been a strong drop in the birth rate, which will lead to new problems for that country’s economy. In the past few years, the total fertility rate in the United States has already declined from 2.1 to 1.7 children per woman. The Brookings Institution published a negative forecast: in 2021, according to scientists, 500,000 fewer Americans will be born than demographers initially expected.
Over the past thirty years Ukraine has already lost one third of its population: in comparison with the previous 2001 census, the population of Ukraine decreased from 52 million by 11 million people, and today amounts to just over 37 million. Further prospects for population decline in this country appear even more pessimistic.
Latvia and Lithuania continue to grow emptier, setting world records. Experts predict a demographic catastrophe for them, and reasons include a shortage of vital specialists, an increase in the number of retirees, and young people emigrating: since the collapse of the USSR, these former Soviet republics have lost up to one third of their population.
Today approximately 390,000 Lithuanian citizens live in extreme poverty, with monthly incomes of less than 240 Euro per person, and less than 500 Euro per family – and these indicators are critically low in terms of typical European ones. The Baltic states spend the least in the EU on welfare payments for their populations. In Latvia, this line item of expenditures amounts to 14.5% of GDP, in Lithuania it is 14.7%, and in Estonia it is 15.1%. For the sake of comparison, in France it is more than one third of GDP.
Among the reasons due to which there will be a decrease in the planet’s population, the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and the expected far-reaching economic recession – which in upcoming years could considerably reduce the birth rate – are the ones most frequently pointed out. Economic uncertainty often leads to people delaying childbearing, or choosing to remain childless.
Bloomberg points out that with nearly 43 million Americans loosing their jobs and essential livelihoods, the combined wealth of American billionaires in recent months has increased by hundreds of billions of dollars, and has now reached 3.51 trillion USD. This is also stated in a report published on the website of the American Institute for Political Studies IPS, which indicates that the process of billionaires amassing wealth is accelerating, while other Americans are facing sharp declines in their savings. The day right after the US presidential elections, the fortunes of just the top ten richest people in the United States grew by more than 33 billion USD.
Increasingly the world’s wealth is concentrating in the hands of a miniscule quantity of people.
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