~~ recommended by newestbeginning ~~
This is at least the thesis supported by James Pomeroy, an economist at HSBC.
Trees don’t grow to the sky. Even less the world population. The number of human beings on the way to reaching 8 billion in the fall of 2022, according to the latest United Nations forecasts, risks collapsing before the end of the century. This is at least the thesis defended by James Pomeroy, an economist at HSBC, in a study published on August 22, 2022.
“The probability that the size of the world’s population will start to shrink in the next twenty years is much higher than we initially expected,” he says.
In his view, the United Nations' predictions that the world’s population will peak in the 2080s do not hold. The peak could be reached much earlier. Around 2043. Why?
Because the fertility rate, which is in sharp decline, significantly reduces the number of births in the context of an already aging population. In July 2022, the UN noted that in 2021, the average fertility of the world population was 2.3 births per woman during her lifetime. It was 5 in the 1950s. According to the UN, it should fall further by 2050 to reach 2.1, the rate that stabilizes the population.
But according to the recent trend observed, the decline could be more important and faster. A first warning was given in 2019 by two Canadian authors, Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson, in their book “Empty Planet: the shock of global population decline”. In it, they argued that aging and low fertility would lead to massive changes in the human population, and sooner than we think. James Pomeroy joins them.
Better access to care
He predicts that the world’s population could reach just over 4 billion by the end of the century. There are many reasons for the decline in fertility rates. The integration of women into the labor market delays the age at which they have their first child. The increase in real estate prices in rich countries limits the development of a large families due to high costs.
Increased education and better access to health care and contraceptive practices also play a role in families having fewer children, the HSBC study said. The pandemic has only accentuated the downward trend in births.
Of course, not all countries are in the same boat. “The decline in fertility rates is global, but for some countries, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, the level, although declining, allows for continued population growth,” says James Pomeroy. Africa’s share of the world’s population will increase, with a large number of young people who will need to be integrated into the world of work, either locally or in developed or emerging countries with labor shortages.
Developed countries and some emerging countries are far from being in the same situation. In Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, the current fertility rate predicts that populations in these countries will be halved by the end of the century. China is not far from joining them.
In Europe, “at the current rate, the population will have halved by 2070, with the continent at risk of losing 400 million inhabitants by 2100. Similarly, if we continue the current trend, India’s population would rise to 1.54 billion in 2050, while China’s would fall to 1.17 billion. France would then have 62.3 million inhabitants and Germany 70.3 million.”
Although some countries have implemented policies to increase fertility, James Pomeroy notes that they are “ineffective”. In some cases, such as in Scandinavia, it is only possible to mention a brake on the decline in fertility rates. Could the decline in the number of inhabitants be inevitable? Nothing is set in stone. s.
No comments:
Post a Comment