Population trends are both a key driver and a consequence of development

By Anastasia J. Gage, Professor at the Department of International Health and Sustainable Development, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University and member of the UN High-level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs

The number of people in the world has risen rapidly in recent times. According to the United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), in mid-2019 there were 7.7 billion in the world, two billion more than in 1996. Almost 250,000 people are added to the planet every day. By 2030, we will have about 8.5 billion people in the world and the numbers will continue rising to around 9.7 billion in 2050 and 10.9 billion by 2100. Over the next few decades, most of the growth in the world’s population will occur in the world’s poorest countries, many of which are in Africa. Most of these countries are expected to double in size by 2050.

Population growth is a result of success in improving public health, nutrition, sanitation, and personal hygiene, which enables people to live longer. In many of the world’s poorest countries, population growth also results from failure to ensure that people everywhere have the knowledge, ability and means to determine when to start having children, how far apart to have them, and the total number of children to have. Although the number of births a woman has in her lifetime has been declining steadily in all the world’s regions, the birth rate in the world’s poorest countries is still higher than the global average. Even if fertility rates fall in the world’s poorest countries, the human population will continue to grow for a few more decades, as the number of adolescents and young people in the world is at an all-time high and many of them will eventually start to bear children.

When a country’s birth rate falls from a high level to a low level and there are relatively more adults of working age in the population, this can create an opportunity for the country to achieve more rapid economic and social development. However, if a country does not adequately plan for economic and welfare investments as it approaches this shift in the age distribution of its population, the window of opportunity for rapid economic growth will close.

The high population growth rate of about 3 percent per year in the world’s poorest countries, many of which are in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, poses huge challenges for these countries to invest more resources per capita on their populations. It makes it quite difficult for the world’s poorest countries to keep up with improvements in education, human capital, health, youth employment, and economic development. When countries address low levels of education, gender inequality, and lack of access to family planning and reproductive health services, when countries invest in human capital and public health, when they provide full and meaningful employment for all, and when they integrate women into the labor market, people tend to have fewer children, and social and economic development tends to progress at a faster pace.

Recently, food, fuel, and commodity prices have risen sharply all over the world and there has been a decline in how much money can buy. The inflation rate is much higher than it has been. The UN estimates that the global inflation rate will increase to 6.7 percent this year, twice as much as the rate of 2.9 percent that occurred during the period 2010-2022. The world’s economy is expected to grow at a lower rate than previously thought – about 3.1 percent, down from 4.0 percent that was projected at the start of the year, according to the World Economic Situation and Prospects as of mid-2022, prepared by UN DESA.

This situation is worsened by the war in Ukraine, new waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, supply shortages, and the fact that central banks in richer countries are raising interest rates as a way of controlling inflation. The hike in interest rates in richer countries will increase developing countries’ borrowing costs and negatively affect their prospects for economic growth. This will make it increasingly difficult for the world’s poorest countries to address widening economic and social inequalities, threats to the environment, and the burdens imposed by HIV, other infectious diseases, and non-communicable diseases. These new threats, as well as climate change and food insecurity, may make it difficult for South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa to bring people out of poverty, service public debts, address the needs of vulnerable groups, and create opportunities for all.

To achieve sustainable development, the world will have to lessen its impact on the environment. Environmental impact is driven not just by the number of people in the world but also by the way humans produce and consume goods and resources. While a large share of the population of developing countries is not consuming enough to meet even their basic needs, they are suffering the most from the drastic effects of climate change and environmental degradation. High-income countries are having more damaging effects on the environment than the world’s poorest countries and urgently need to reduce waste, including per capita food waste, adopt sustainable natural resource management strategies, and assist developing countries to adapt to climate change and invest in greener technologies

Against this backdrop, is the world on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, particularly those related to poverty, hunger, good health and well-being, quality education, decent work and economic growth, gender equality, and reduced inequalities? Can we sustain a global population increase of about 2 to 3 billion between now and the turn of the century? What policies must countries put in place to protect the environment, feed the growing population, and develop sustainably?

* The views expressed in this blog are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of UN DESA.

References:

United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2019). World Population Prospects 2019: Highlights (ST/ESA/SER.A/423). http://voice.marketingbangkok.net/pd/sites/voice.marketingbangkok.net.development.desa.pd/files/undesa_pd_kf_wpp2019_10keyfindings.pdf

United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2022). World Economic Situation and Prospects as of mid-2022. http://voice.marketingbangkok.net/dpad/publication/world-economic-situation-and-prospects-as-of-mid-2022/