8 Billion People, Visualized
On November 15th of 2022, the Earth reached the population milestone of 8 billion people.
At GradSchoolCenter.com we wanted to explore what this means for the present and for the future.
First, let’s take a look at how the 8 billion people of the world are spread out across the highest population countries of the world.
The Many Pieces Of Our Growing World
- By continent
- North America
- USA: 338 million
- Mexico: 228 million
- Canada: 28 million
- South America
- Brazil: 215 million
- Colombia: 52 million
- Argentina: 46 million
- Europe
- Russia: 145 million
- UK: 68 million
- Germany: 83 million
- Asia
- China: 1.426 billion
- India: 1.417 billion
- Japan: 124 million
- Africa
- Nigeria: 219 million
- Ethiopia: 123 million
- Egypt: 111 million
- Oceania
- Indonesia: 280 million
- Australia: 26 million
- New Zealand: 5 million
The world’s population is growing at an increase of 0.83% per year
Even though the world’s population is growing and we just passed the 8 billion people marker, that doesn’t mean that every country is growing at the same rate. It doesn’t even mean that every country is growing. In fact, some countries are actually losing population!
Global life expectancy has grown from 29 years to 73 years since 1800, indicating better global health and an older world population
As life expectancy grows in a country, it’s common for the fertility rate to decrease. Globally, life expectancy grew from 29 to 73 years since 1800.
As life expectancy grew, the number of kids per couple decreased.
Population Growth And Loss In Our Most Populous Countries (2022)
- By rate of population change
- Nigeria: +2.4%
- Pakistan: +2.0%
- Bangladesh: +1.0%
- Mexico: 0.8%
- India: +0.7%
- Indonesia: +0.6%
- US: +0.5%
- Brazil: +0.5%
- Russia: +0.0%
- China: +0.0%
- By fertility rate
- Nigeria: 5.14 children per woman
- Pakistan: 3.14 children per woman
- Indonesia: 2.15 children per woman
- India: 2.01 children per woman
- Bangladesh: 1.95 children per woman
- Mexico: 1.80 children per woman
- US: 1.66 children per woman
- Brazil: 1.63 children per woman
- Russia: 1.50 children per woman
- China: 1.18 children per woman
- By migration rate
- US: 2.784 per 1000 people
- Russia: 0.748 per 1000 people
- Brazil: 0.043 per 1000 people
- China: -0.254 per 1000 people
- Nigeria: -0.280 per 1000 people
- India: -0.342 per 1000 people
- Indonesia: -0.375 per 1000 people
- Mexico: -0.428 per 1000 people
- Pakistan: -0.921 per 1000 people
- Bangladesh: -2.113 per 1000 people
There’s a pretty strong correlation between a country’s overall health, it’s life expectancy and it’s fertility rate. The healthier a country, the longer its life expectancy tends to be. Healthy countries also tend to have lower fertility rates, following the trend that fertility rates are inverse to life expectancy.
Measuring The Health Of Our World
- 5 healthiest countries in the world
- Spain: 92.75 Health Index Score (life expectancy = 83.98 years)
- Italy: 91.59 Health Index Score (life expectancy = 83.94 years)
- Iceland: 91.44 Health Index Score (life expectancy = 82.52 years)
- Japan: 91.38 Health Index Score (life expectancy = 85 years)
- Switzerland: 90.93 Health Index Score (life expectancy = 83.65 years)
- 5 unhealthiest countries in the world
- Sierra Leone: 0 Health Index Score (life expectancy = 44.40 years)
- Somalia: 0 Health Index Score (life expectancy = 47.80 years)
- Chad: 0 Health Index Score (life expectancy = 46.10 years)
- Central African Republic: 0 Health Index Score (life expectancy = 45.90 years)
- South Sudan: 0 Health Index Score (life expectancy = 49.90 years)
How A Growing World Has Affected Businesses
- The bad:
- Global GDP growth has slowed
- The current population is projected to push the global GDP by just 9.6%
- Potential labor shortages
- By 2030, surpluses are set to become shortfalls, risking $10 trillion
- Growing industry demands to serve an aging population
- Assisted living facilities, pharmaceuticals, and hospitals set to boom
- Global GDP growth has slowed
- The good:
- An older population increases our productivity
- Longer lives lead to increased capita
- Larger countries lead to an increase in multinational corporations
- MNCs and affiliates contributed 36% of global output in 2016 alone
- Much of the GDP shifting towards sub-Saharan Africa
- Effective labor grows rates in Africa (2.22%) will outpace Europe and the Americas (0.79%) between 2020 and 260
- An older population increases our productivity
Earth’s population will peak at 10.4 billion in 2080, according to UN projections believes with growth rates falling significantly after that
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/padr.12469
https://www.iberglobal.com/files/The_Global_Workforce_Crisis_bcg.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7068414/
https://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/10.1596/978-1-4648-1683-3_ch2
Experts Commentary
New Opportunities — And Potential Pitfalls
- António Guterres: United Nations Secretary-General, 2022
- “The milestone is an occasion to celebrate diversity and advancements while considering humanity’s shared responsibility for the planet.”
- Dr. Mrittika Shamsuddin: Instructor of Development Economics at Dalhousie University
- “Humankind has made tremendous progress, with more and more people coming out of poverty and hunger in the midst of population growth. However, rapid population growth might lead to congestion, depletion of non-renewable resources, deforestation, pollution, and hence global warming.”
- Dr. Liz Allen: ANU researcher and demographer
- “Population growth or decline aren’t in and of themselves bad things. The key issue is how a population is functioning, and this often gets boiled down to the proportion of the population which is of working-age.”
It took 12 years to grow from 7 billion to 8 billion — and experts say the 9 billionth baby is just 15 years away
https://www.un.org/en/dayof8billion
https://www.un.org/en/dayof8billion
The Road To 9 Billion People
- Africa will become the fastest growing continent
- Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to double by 2050
- Europe’s population will continue to decline
- Countries declining 15% by 2050
- Bosnia
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Hungary
- Japan
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Republic of Moldova
- Romania
- Serbia
- Ukraine
- Countries declining 15% by 2050
- International migration will increase over time
- Represent 3.3% of all people today (compared to 2.6% in 1960)
- 165 million more migrants than 1960
In an ever-growing world, change is the only constant.
https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/population
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/trend/archive/summer-2016/global-migrations-rapid-rise
