The world's population (7.7 billion) is on the rise, but is approaching a point where it could start to decline.
The fertility rate (number of children per woman of childbearing age) on the planet was 2.31 in 2019, according to data from the latest
Global Burden of Disease
, a study just published by
The Lancet
and which measures the clearest indicators of the effect of health on the world's inhabitants, such as life expectancy and infant mortality.
This parameter of 2.3 represents a decrease to just under half (54% less) than in 1980 (4.97), and is dangerously close to the 2.1 that is considered the minimum necessary for the population to total does not decrease.
In 2000 it was 2.72.
Logically, behind this average there are great differences.
Puerto Rico is the territory with the lowest rate, 1.1.
Most of the most developed countries are around 2, with Spain at 1.3, among the lowest countries, according to this study.
In 2018 it was at 2.18, and in 1980 at 2.40.
This explains why the population in the country decreases, and it would do so more if it were not for the foreigners who arrive.
At the opposite extreme are the sub-Saharan African countries, with rates above five, with the highest in Niger (7.44).
With this evolution, the magazine predicts that the world will not reach 10,000 million.
This evolution has caused the world to reach a maximum of live births in 2016 of 139.6 million;
last year they were 135.3 million, a decrease of 3% in three years.
That is, until recently, the decrease in the number of children per woman was offset by the increase in the number of them.
Since 2016 that no longer happens.
Furthermore, global aging is reflected in the other factor influencing the number of inhabitants in addition to births: deaths.
These have gone from 50.7 million in 2000 to 56.5 million in 10 years (11.4% more).
That is to say, deliveries go down and deaths go up.
The slowdown in world population growth started in the 1980s, but is now reaching the point where it stops rising and starts falling.
The report includes two other parameters that show the inequality that exists on the planet.
The mortality of children under five years of age is considered a key parameter of the effectiveness of health systems.
In the world it is 37.1 children per thousand inhabitants.
But the values range from 1.8 in Singapore and Andorra (Finland is the best European, 2.2) to 118.5 in Mali, 50 times more.
Spain is at 3.0.
Life expectancy at birth of Earthlings (before COVID) is, on average, 73.5 years (76.1 in women, 71 in men).
And here the inequality is also striking.
A person born today in Lesotho has an expectation of living 33 years less than one in Singapore (their life expectancies are 51.8 and 84.9 years, respectively).
Spain, as usual, is among the highest: 83.1 years on average.
Where there are fewer differences between the extremes of the table is that they live longer.
Specifically, seven more years in Lesotho (55.4 years for women compared to 48.6 years for men) and five more years in the oldest countries (86.7 compared to 82.9 years in Singapore; 85.7 by 80 , 4 in Spain).