World population growth rate falls below one percent

Health For the first time since 1950

World population growth rate falls below one percent

Status: 12:52 p.m | Reading time: 2 minutes

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According to current forecasts, population growth will peak in the 2080s at around 10.4 billion people. However, the global growth rate has now fallen below one percent. And the corona pandemic is having an impact on life expectancy.

SFor the first time since records began in 1950, the world population growth rate has fallen below 1 percent per year. As the German Foundation for World Population (DSW) reported on World Population Day on Monday, based on the latest population statistics from the United Nations, it is currently 0.8 percent.

In addition, global life expectancy fell by 1.8 years to 71 years compared to 2019. This is mainly due to the corona pandemic.

Falling life expectancy and slower population growth did not mean a reversal of the trend, it said. In absolute terms, the world population continues to grow. There are currently 7,977,000,000 people living on earth, on November 15 of this year there were already eight billion. The world population is currently growing by almost 66 million people a year – or 180,000 people a day.

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According to current forecasts, population growth will peak in the 2080s at around 10.4 billion people. So far, the United Nations had assumed a maximum of 10.9 billion people around the year 2100.

The continued rapid population growth is due to the persistently high birth rate in developing countries. “In the Global South, many girls and women are still having more children than they would like. This is shown by the high birth rates in sub-Saharan Africa, for example,” emphasizes the deputy managing director of DSW, Angela Bähr. According to the UN, the average number of children per woman there is still 4.6, which is twice the global figure of 2.3.

Bähr cited poverty, a lack of sex education and poor access to contraceptives as reasons for the high rate of children, especially in sub-Saharan countries. The deputy DSW managing director emphasized that family planning from a young age is not only a human right, but also a key to fighting poverty.

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“Therefore, we call on the federal government that sex education and access to contraceptives must be the cornerstones of a feminist development policy,” emphasized Bähr.