Global Monitor

The sharp slowdown in world population growth, disclosed in the US Census Bureau’s World Population Profile: 1996, and reported on in a previous issue of this Review,1 has received new confirmation in the just released World Population Prospects2 report of the United Nations’ Population Division.

The UN’s Prospects indicated that throughout the period 1990–1995, “an average of 81 million persons [were] added each year” to the world’s population, a figure “much below the 87 million persons added each year between 1985 and 1990.”3

Despite the continuing hype from the population control industry about yearly increments added to the world’s population of well over 90 million people, the UN reported that the 87 million annual increment of the late 1980s “stands now as the peak period in the history of world population growth.”4

Among the more startling statistics from the UN’s population report were: (1) the world’s total fertility rate during the 1990–1995 period had plunged to 2.96 births per woman per completed reproductive lifetime,5 (2) the annual growth rate of the world’s population fell to 1.48 percent during the years 1990–1995, the lowest rate in more than 50 years and a significant departure from the 1.72 percent rate which had prevailed during the 1980s6 and, most remarkable of all, (3) according to the UN’s “low variant” population projection — which over the past decade has proven to be the most accurate of the three (low, medium and high) variants employed by the UN — total world population will never exceed 7. 8 billion persons, and will top our in 2040 and then rapidly decline!7

Although the UN’s press release which accompanied the population report emphasized that the total population of the world would most likely “reach 9.4 billion by 2050,” that projection is based on the UN’s “medium variant” estimate. Such projections have proven to be too high in recent years.

For instance, the medium variant estimates made just two years ago in the 1994 Revision were too high with regard to the world’s total fertility rate, which was 2.96 rather than the projected 3.10, too high with regard to annual population growth rate, which was 1.48 percent rather than the expected 1.57, and too high with regard to the total 1995 world population, which was 29 million lower than the 1994 prediction.8

Moreover, the medium variant estimates for the total fertility rates of world’s developed nations in almost all cases unaccountably increase sharply to replacement level rates over the next few decades.

Low TFR nations such as Japan (current TFR of 1.48), Spain (1.27), Germany (1.30). Austria (1.48). Slovenia (1.36), Russian Federation (1.53), etc., are all projected to rebound to replacement level or near-replacement level rates by mid-century. Practically the only exception is Italy (TFR currently at 1.24), which is projected to increase to 1.82 by 2050.

There is absolutely no evidence whatever to validate such projections — actually mere guesstimates — for the world’s developed nations. This is all the more reason why this Review believes the low variant projection is the most accurate one for future world population growth.

Just how badly things are going population-wise tor some of the world’s developed nations may be seen from the following shocking UN data: the populations of Italy, Japan, Russian Federation, Spain, and Germany, among others, are all set to plunge throughout the next half-century. (These projections fly in the face of the aforementioned UN medium variant claim that these nations will all return to replacement level or very near replacement level TFRs.)

In the cases of Italy, Japan, Russian Federation, and Spain, the populations will decline under every individual variant — low, medium or high (!), while in Germany a small increase in population is projected only for the high variant scenario, which even the UN terms as “highly unrealistic.”

Italy’s population decline will range from 10 to 20 million over the next 50 years, a loss of 18 to 35 percent of its current population. Japan’s population loss under the low variant projection will total nearly 30 million, almost a quarter of the nation’s present population. The Russian Federation’s population losses will range from 6 million for the unrealistic high variant projection, to 34 million (nearly 25 percent of the present population) for the medium projection, to a whopping 52 million (35 percent of the current total) for the low projection.

Similarly, in Spain the fall in population will range from 4 million to nearly 12 million, which yields percentage declines of 10 to 30 percent of the much smaller Spanish population. For Germany the projected population decline will range up to 22 million, 22 percent of the current population.9

Under the UN’s medium variant projection, Europe’s population is slated to fall by more than 90 million; under the more likely (in our opinion), low variant case, the decline will be greater than 190 million, some 26 percent of the present population.

A further negative factor in future world population growth is the inroads of the AIDS epidemic. The UN report projects that tor each of the decades 1995–2005 and 2005–2015, the number of additional deaths due to AIDS in the less developed regions of the world, principally Africa, will number about 14 million, for an overall total of some 28 million deaths.10