Everyone is freaking out about this graph

everyone is freaking out about this graph showing that the world's population is going to Peak soon and then start to decrease so this is true demographers think that the world's population is going to Peak around 10.9 billion before starting to decrease quite soon so today we're going to explain why the world's population is declining why some people think this is the end of us while others think this could be the best possible situation for Humanity this is some of the most fascinating information I've learned in years so let's get into it we first started recording population size in 4000 BC when the Babylonians used birth and death census data to understand population size to figure out how much food they needed to produce and how to plan for the future in many ways now we're still doing the same thing current governments use Census Data such as birth and death certificates to understand their own population size and understand how much food again that they need but now Society is more complex so we design income tax for future investments plan infrastructure to keep our citizens healthy and happy and organize Healthcare and education around our population sizes now when we want to understand the whole Earth's population we have to rely on overarching bodies like the UN in 1968 the UN projected that by 1990 the global population would be 5.44 billion the real figure ended up being 5.34 billion the UN also predicted that by 2010 the population would be 6.8 to 7.2 billion and the correct number was 7 billion with the same un data we know that in as recent as 1974 the world's population was only 4 billion now it's over 8 billion that means that in the last 50 years the population on Earth has doubled this has to do with scientific breakthroughs in medicine crop yields and sanitation but now the fertility rate is plummeting so much in specifically wealthy Nations that the UN thinks that will Peak at 10.9 billion around the year 2100 and then the population size on Earth is going to slowly start to decrease or stabilize they make these predictions by using the statistical idea of fertility rate in order for a population to grow the fertility rate needs to be above replacement level which is 2.1 children being born per woman in that Society 2.1 represents the average number of children a woman would need to have in order for one of their kids to be a daughter who survives to childbearing age so truly all data about the future population statistics on Earth are based on how many kids women are having and the average number it takes for at least one of those kids to be a girl so in many ways one of the most important things in the world is girls now the reason our overall population is soon going to decrease is because the fertility rate is below replacement level in the U.S all of Europe Canada Australia New Zealand All of southern Asia all of Eastern Asia Latin America and the Caribbean in fact in the next 25 years almost all of the population growth on Earth is going to be coming from only eight countries that's Pakistan the Philippines India Egypt Ethiopia Ethiopia Tanzania the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria in fact in Nigeria children and adolescents currently make up half of the population Nigeria with just one tenth the land of the United States is projected to soon hold 377 million people becoming the planet's third most populous nation ahead of the U.S and just behind only India and China now even though populations might be growing in sub-Saharan Africa their consumption of resources is minuscule to those in for example North America in January 2022 a study found that the average carbon dioxide emissions of one American is the equivalent of 22 people living in sub-Saharan Africa now even in sub-Saharan Africa their fertility rate is decreasing it's now at 4.72 children on average being born per woman in sub-Saharan Africa that's down two points from just 20 years ago another big reason the Earth's population is going to decrease soon is China in January 2022 China announced for the fifth year in a row that their country's birth rate had fallen Island in 2021 10.6 million children were born in China compared to 12 million the year before in China over the past seven years the number of births has fallen by almost half from 18 million in 2016 to 9.6 million in 2022. all of this is going to lead to an earth that a new cpan paper predicts will peak in population as early as 2064 at around only 9.7 billion people and then plummet back to 8 billion people by the time it's 2 100. according to this paper we'll increase by another 2 billion people by 2064 then by the end of the century we will be back to where we are right now at 8 billion people even though this study was peer reviewed by many scientists and demographers still the most trusted numbers come from the U.S now it's also really important to understand how the future population shifts are going to change so much depending on which country you're in in fact using current census data without immigration by 2100 Spain Italy Thailand and Japan will see their population sizes cut in half Japan a country that's immigration averse by 2045 May statistically have one quarter of their population with dementia and without increased immigration their social systems could collapse and be unable to sustain the proper health of their aging population I currently live in Canada we have an extremely low fertility rate our population is declining and the only way our population can stabilize or increase is by allowing 500 000 newcomers into Canada each year and even demographers and politicians think we need to allow more newcomers into Canada to deal with the decreasing population we currently have so demographers agree that to deal with the imbalance infertility rates around the world we need to increase the amount of immigration that is happening right now only two to four percent of the world's population lives outside of the country they were born in that is crazy to me I think maybe because I'm from Toronto which is extremely diverse the idea that only two to four percent of people live outside of their country of origin is like I it's I don't understand that that's that makes you realize clearly that immigration is not happening enough between the year 2000 to 2020 according to the UN the number of international migrants and refugees who had fled conflict or crisis or prosecution human rights violations things like that has increased from 17 million to 34 million this is due to increased conflict on Earth this is an amazing opportunity for wealthy countries to welcome newcomers and immigrants but sadly poorer countries take on that burden in fact 85 percent of forcibly displaced people currently live in Turkey Jordan and Kenya I repeat 85 of force will be displaced people are currently in Turkey Jordan or Kenya this shows how effectively wealthy nations with decreasing population sizes are keeping refugees and newcomers out a lot of this has to do with xenophobic governments that create this false idea that immigrants are a burden to society when in fact they're the only way that these wealthy Nations will ever be able to continue to grow some corporations public figures and politicians are freaking out about the world's population declining because they think it's going to mess with economic markets to the point of Destruction but many other economists and scientists think we can reframe this information to be extremely positive first of all fertility rate decreases as a society gains more gender equality partly because women tend to have children later in life and fewer children overall within countries that have higher gender equality statistics the fertility rate in Nigeria has decreased as women gained more Independence more rights more happiness and more jobs this is a good thing so fertility rate decreasing is a sign of women getting more rights and this actually helps societies overall a new study found that when countries have more women legislators they have decreased poverty decreased hunger and increased climate action which leads to the next point that population stability or decline may be a good thing for the climate crisis a new study found that the lower fertility rates around the world will result in decreased emissions by 2055 and a per capita income increase of 10 percent per citizen so it's been found that wealth is distributed more evenly as fertility rates decrease as well when fertility rates decrease women take on more government and corporate jobs and studies show that when women are in leadership roles they are more likely to advance initiatives that fight climate change and protect nature when it comes to this fear of a stabilizing population size or a decrease in population size on Earth it's always linked to a fear of a failing economy but economists agree that we can't have this current infinite economic growth on a finite Planet if we focus on the fossil fuel industry which controls much of current market trends the current economic growth expected for fossil fuel companies the way they are right now will lead to extraction and Emissions that create an ecosystem Collapse by 2030 which economists think will cost the world 2.7 trillion dollars per year Deloitte recently estimated that without significant decreases to fossil fuel extraction climate chaos will cost the U.S alone 14.5 trillion dollars per year by 2070 this will be due to wildfires droughts and floods destroying communities Farms businesses and housing so the population is going to soon decrease and people are going to be freaking out about this but I think this information gives us a new context or lens to think about who's freaking out about the population decrease and why if less people means more gender equality healthier people wealthier people an ability for us to live more in tandem with nature and a decrease in the climate chaos that we're seeing today why does it have to be such a bad thing I'll link to our podcast here where we have even more population statistics thank you so much for watching share this with friends and family this is a fascinating concept and I can't wait to do more research and see what happens to the earth's population in the future