PRESS BRIEFING ON WORLD POPULATION TRENDS

 

Although pressured by distinct trends in fertility, mortality, and the continuing spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the world’s population was expected to increase by 2.6 billion over the next 45 years, from about 6.5 billion today to 9.1 billion by 2050, with almost all growth occurring on the less developed regions, according to the United Nations top population monitoring official.

Briefing correspondents at Headquarters this afternoon, Hania Zlotnik, Director of the Population Division in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) said that the population in the developing countries, which today stood at some 5.3 billion, was expected to swell to 7.8 billion by 2050.  By contrast, the population of the developed and more developed regions, despite lower fertility rates, would remain mostly unchanged, at 1.2 billion.

Ms. Zlotnik highlighted the Division’s upcoming report, “World Population Change 1950-2050, the 2004 Revision”, the first of a three-volume series currently under preparation, which features global population trends and projections compiled by the Division.  The Revision takes into account the results of recent specialized surveys carried out in developing countries to provide demographic information and data to assess progress in achieving the internationally agreed development objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The information included in the Revision confirmed the variety of demographic dynamics of our times, she said.  The world had added nearly 500 million people since 1999 -- just six years.  The good news was that new estimates showed that it would take a little longer to add the next half million, reaching the 7 billion mark probably by 2013.  She said that the 9.1 billion 2050 population total projected by the new report was a little higher than the numbers the Division had projected a couple of years ago.

This upward revision was due mainly to lower predicted mortality in many of the developed countries and in some of the already-low mortality countries of Asia and Latin America.  Another emerging factor was the small but very important predicted increase in HIV/AIDS survivorship in countries highly affected by the deadly disease.  The report took into account increasing access to antiretroviral drugs, which would give people living with AIDS “a few more years of life”, which made a big difference in terms of population trends, she said.

Other that that, “everything was basically what we have estimated before”, she said:  birth rates would continue to decrease, while vast regions, particularly in the developed world, would continue to experience ageing.  “If we brought together 100 people today, ten of them would be 60 years old or older, but by 2050, a sample of 100 people would show 22 over the age of 60.”

Going on to highlight some of the report’s other findings, Ms. Zlotnik told everyone to remember that there was no “average” person or “population” and that the study really drew its conclusions from data compiled from studies of specific geographic regions.  That perspective best illustrated the two demographic extremes that would characterize population trends over the next 45 years:  growth in the developing world -- particularly the least developed countries (LDCs) -- and virtually little fluctuation in industrialized countries.

The least developed countries were characterized by three “highs” -- high fertility, high mortality and high population growth, she said.  Today, women in those countries still gave birth to 5 children on average.  And even though predictions showed the fertility rates in the LDCs dipping rapidly over the next 45 years -- to about 2.6 children -- it would still not reach the level of other developing countries.  Life expectancy in those countries was barely 50 years, mainly because 31 of the 50 United Nations-recognized least developed countries were affected by HIV/AIDS.

At the same time, the other countries were also plagued by infectious diseases and poor health standards.  “We’re being very optimistic and predicting that they will be able to turn back those challenges and raise life expectancy to 66 years by 2050 -- if they are lucky”, Ms. Zlotnik said.  Still, that figure represented the average life expectancy of people in the developed world almost fifty years ago.  The high mortality rates would be counteracted because of continued high fertility, she said, noting that the population of the LDCs, which today stood at about 800 million, would more than double to 1.8 billion by mid-century.

At the other end of the spectrum, the more developed countries largely completed their demographic transitions and were now “headed into areas heretofore unknown to human history”, where both mortality and fertility were trending lower virtually simultaneously.  If this continued, with fertility levels at or below replacement levels, the population in the developed world would decrease, she said.

But the population was expected to remain unchanged in much of the developed world, including North America, New Zealand, Australia and Japan, because of increased international migration.  The United Nations was predicting that industrialized countries would absorb about 2.2 million migrants each year through the middle of the century.  Those numbers would be sufficient to counterbalance the excess of deaths over births during that period.  She added that the migrant populations would not be evenly distributed, and Western Europe, which would experience lower fertility than other developed regions, was predicted, at least for now, to also admit few migrants. 

In the middle were the countries of the wider developing world, which had experienced an amazing decline in fertility -- from about 5 children per woman to 2.6 over the past few decades – which was expected to trend below replacement levels by 2050.  Birth rates in China were already at 1.7 children per woman, while India was at 3 children per woman, which was one of the reasons the total population of India was expected to surpass that of China by 2025.

Highlighting some disturbing trends revealed in the study, she said the United Nations was concerned that mortality rates in several Eastern European countries had been higher than expected.  And while it was not as high as in Africa, the trend showed declines.  That was mostly due to lagging socio-economic development in most of those countries, as well as the expansion of the AIDS virus in the Eastern European region, she said, noting particular spikes in HIV prevalence rates currently in Ukraine and the Russian Federation.

That brought her to another concern, the continuing dreadful impact of HIV/AIDS worldwide.  And although there had been some downward revisions for AIDS-related deaths in a few countries, the disease was continuing to take its terrible toll.  Sub-Saharan Africa would continue to be most affected by the pandemic, where more that one in three persons was infected in some countries.  Even more troubling for Southern Africa was that, as the crisis had deepened over the past two decades, an emerging tragedy was that the disease was now hitting hardest among the working-age population, between 20 and 49 years of age.

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