World Population To Shrink: Lancet Study

• 17 Jul 2020

• A new analysis published in The Lancet has projected that the world population will peak much earlier than previously estimated. It projects the peak at 9.73 billion in 2064, which is 36 years earlier than the 11 billion peak projected for 2100 by last year’s UN report World Population Prospects. For 2100, the new report projects a decline to 8.79 billion from the 2064 peak.
• For India, the report projects a peak population of 1.6 billion in 2048, up from 1.38 billion in 2017. By 2100, the population is projected to decline by 32% to 1.09 billion.

Reasons for Fall

• The sharper fall is due to the assumption that all women globally will have much higher access to contraception and education. This scenario will lead to a sharper reduction in the Total Fertility Rate, a metric that shows on average how many children a woman must have to keep replenishing the population. A TFR is lower than 2.1 leads to a decline in a country’s population.

Challenges

• There is a huge challenge to the economic growth due to a shrinking workforce, the high burden on health and social support systems of an ageing population.
• Huge shifts in the global age structure, with an estimated 2.37 billion individuals over 65 years globally in 2100, compared with 1.7 billion under 20 years, underscoring the need for liberal immigration policies in countries with significantly declining working age populations.

Possible Solutions

• Incentives to increase TFR, and using artificial intelligence as a path towards self-sufficiency.
• Wealthy countries could counteract the impact of these changes through net migration of working-age adults from the countries with growing populations.