Humanity exceeds 8 billion people

In the time you read this sentence, there have been 65 births in the world.

In that same time, 32 people will have died.

That is a population growth of 33 more humans in a sentence of about 15 seconds.

And so, at the rate of 70 million additional people per year, humanity reaches a total of 8,000 million souls on the planet on November 15, 2022.

According to UN data, 80% of this demographic increase occurs in developing countries.

The main cause is that it is where women lack family planning services to a greater extent and, in practice, do not have the power to decide whether, when or how many to have children.

The consequences of this growth, experts warn, can be devastating if the basic needs of all of us who are here and who will come are not met;

while taking into account the damage to the environment.

The UN has raised this date as an "opportunity" to attract attention to the demographic challenge.

It avoids describing rapid population growth as a problem, but stresses that it puts sustainable development at risk and places gender equality at the center of the debate.

“The 46 least developed countries are among the fastest growing in the world.

Many of them are expected to double their population between 2022 and 2050, which will put additional pressure on resources and challenge the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”,

“Many people live in poverty, have no work or food security, and now more people are being born.

That increases the challenge of meeting everyone's basic needs,” says Michael Herrmann, economics and demography adviser at UNFPA.

To achieve this, adds the expert, consumption will increase, which will require an increase in production.

"With the current model, that will have a huge and dramatic environmental impact."

But not doing so will mean more conflict and mass migration, he argues.

It took 125 years for the human family to grow from one thousand to two billion.

In 1952, 70 years ago, the planet was already inhabited by 2,500 million people.

Since then, the species has not stopped multiplying and is doing so more and more rapidly.

The last additional 1 billion have been added in just 12 years.

India was the largest contributor, and will overtake China as the most populous country by 2023, even though China ranks second in terms of increase, followed by Nigeria.

The next billion are expected to take approximately 14.5 years (2037).

And more than half of the increase to 2050 will be concentrated in eight nations: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania.

More information

India will overtake China in population and Africa fuels the demographic engine

The Sahel provides a good example of the challenges posed by population growth, says Kathleen Mogelgaard, president of the US-based Population Institute.

“Many actors are concerned about security in the region and wonder how to guarantee it in the long term.

Demographers point out that when you have such a young age structure, with half the population under the age of 15, it is very difficult for governments to maintain basic services, and people will be constantly on the move to try to survive and seek a better life for their families.

It is a completely understandable response if you live in dangerous conditions, where you cannot meet your needs.”

Luis Simoes, a World Data Lab consultant, believes, however, that there are reasons for optimism.

According to his data, half of the 8,000 million people on Earth today are "consumer class", that is, they have more than 12 dollars a day (almost the same amount of euros at the current exchange rate).

In 15 years, there will be 1 billion more humans, but the number of consumers will increase by 2 billion.

“That is good news, it means that there will be more people coming out of poverty”, he interprets.

"With the war, the covid or inflation, our morale is low, but in just over a decade, the people who are going to buy products and services will be 50% more than today."

Sustainable development is meeting the needs of the people who live and will be born, without destroying the environment.

And it can only be achieved by shifting towards greener ways of producing and more conscious ways of consuming.

Michael Hermann, UNFPA

This "positive innovation" that speaks of a future with fewer poor people, in Simoes's terms, can lead to problems of environmental degradation if production increases with the current model, he acknowledges.

"Industries and governments will have to propose systems that are sustainable."

For Hermann, from UNFPA, that is precisely “the heart of the challenge of sustainable development: meeting the needs of the people who live and will be born, without destroying the environment.

And it can only be done by moving towards much greener ways of producing things, and much more conscious ways of consuming.”

More sexual and reproductive health

In order to face what the UN describes as a challenge or demographic transition, ecological productive inventions will not suffice, but population growth must be stabilized.

The boom of the last decades is partially explained by the increase in life expectancy (nine years more than in 1990), which has to do with better sanitary conditions and development in the Global South, as well as the effectiveness of anti-fungal programs. maternal and infant mortality in recent decades.

“This is the good part of the story,” says Herrmann.

The other side is that of global gender inequality, which translates into few or no choice options for women when deciding on maternity.

"We know that approximately half of the pregnancies in the world are unwanted," analyzes Mogelgaard.

This means that 121 million women a year did not want or plan to have these children.

"Efforts to provide them with access to family planning services are not enough for them to determine if they want to have children, how many and when," laments the president of the Population Institute.

Half of the pregnancies in the world, about 121 million, are unwanted

This is corroborated by the UNFPA statistics, 257 million women who want to avoid pregnancy do not use modern and safe contraceptive methods due to lack of access.

Nearly a quarter of the world's female population does not even have the option to say no to sexual relations.

Faced with these obstacles to exercising control over their own bodies and motherhood, 60% of unwanted pregnancies end in abortions, of which almost half are unsafe.

“If you ask women in some of the countries where they have many children how many children they want, they will probably say two, maybe three.

And right now they have more of what they want,” says Herrmann.

The lack of decision-making power to avoid having children is a violation of women's human rights, as is fertility control (forbidding them from having them) to stop the population explosion, Herrmann says.

The respectful response to reduce the birth rate in countries where it is high is to provide family planning, sexual and reproductive health services that women need.

In short, cover an unsatisfied demand.

Mogelgaard agrees, recalling that gender inequality in a broad sense is the pending task to address the demographic boom.

“Girls with fewer years of schooling are at higher risk of early marriage and early pregnancy,” she says.

Education and economic autonomy are, in her opinion,

With this recipe – more education, economic autonomy and sexual and reproductive health services – there are good examples of reducing the fertility rate (average number of children per woman).

“We have seen it in Guatemala: the average number of children was more than five per woman in the eighties.

Today it is around 2.3.

In recent decades there has been a spectacular decline in fertility thanks to a concerted effort by the government and non-governmental organizations to expand and prioritize family planning services,” says Mogelgaard.

Thus, the Central American country is close to the so-called replacement rate (2.1).

"Ethiopia is another good example," says the expert.

There, joint programs between the authorities and civil society have not only managed to improve maternal and child health indicators, but the fertility rate has dropped from seven children per woman in the 1990s to about four today.

"Again, it is an unfinished agenda, but we see progress," celebrates the head of the Population Institute.

The data confirm that globally the fertility rate is falling, however, the population continues to increase because, with 2.3 live births per woman, the so-called replacement rate (2.1 children per woman) is still exceeded, with which humanity would remain in a stable number.

"When looking at the figures, there may be those who think that sexual and reproductive health programs are useless, but they do work," says the UNFPA demographer.

Africa has the highest population growth rate in the world – 2.5% per year – due to its high fertility.

In the sub-Saharan region, where the population is expected to double by 2050, births per woman have fallen from 6.5 to 4.7 in the last 30 years.

A downgrade, but still well above average.

Two thirds of the world's population lives, however, in a country or area where fertility is less than 2.1 births per woman, mainly in developed territories.

Thus, the global population will continue to grow, driven by the high rates in Asia and Africa, but at a slower pace.

In 2080 a peak of 10.4 billion people will be reached, the UN estimates.

An amount that will remain stable until 2100.

In order for the most favorable estimates to be a reality and for humanity not to gobble up natural resources to extinction, financing and promoting the gender equality agenda is key, insists Mogelgaard.

“The United States used to be a world leader in supporting programs around the world that provided voluntary family planning services to women and girls.

And in a way we have given up on that leadership, ”she laments.

Herrmann believes that, in general, countries from the North (as donors) and from the South (as implementers of policies that facilitate sexual and reproductive health) realize that gender equality is an important mandate.

But he qualifies: “I'm not sure that everyone is aware that demographics matter a lot to avoid conflicts and dramatic situations.

At some point, they're going to have to admit it."

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