The population boom is a success story, not a doomsday scenario

The balance of the world will shift away from an ageing Europe and Japan, and towards the youthful Indian sub-continent and Africa, writes Hamish McRae

We will reach peak humankind in the final quarter of this century (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

On 15 September this year, the world’s population will pass 8 billion. That’s the prediction by the United Nations in its new World Population Prospects 2022 that’s just been published.

Of course, it won’t be that particular day, for we can never know precisely how many people there are on the globe at any one time, but the general message stands: there are around 8 billion people in the world and the number is steadily climbing. It will go to around 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, but after that, it will level off and be stable at around 10.4 billion by the end of this century.

These UN population projections are the gold standard in demography. I’m not sure about what might happen by 2100, but when they are looking 30 years ahead, they have been pretty much spot on. Back in 1991 when the world’s population was 5.3 billion, they expected it would grow to between 7.5 and 8 billion by 2020 – and it was 7.75 billion. That is a bullseye.