Projections of population growth  

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Projections of population growth established in 2017 predict that the human population is likely to keep growing until 2100, reaching an estimated 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100, while the 7 billion milestone was reached in 2011. As the demographic transition follows its course worldwide, the population will age significantly, with most countries outside Africa trending towards a rectangular age pyramid.

The world population is currently growing by approximately 83 million people each year. Growth rates are slowing to various extents within different populations with result of the overall population growth rate decreasing from 1.55% per year in 1995 to 1.25% in 2005, 1.18% in 2015 and 1.10% in 2017. The median estimate for future growth sees the world population reaching 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100 assuming a continuing decrease in average fertility rate from 2.5 births per woman in 2010–2015 to 2.2 in 2045–2050 and to 2.0 in 2095–2100, according to the medium-variant projection. With longevity trending towards uniform and stable values worldwide, the main driver of future population growth is the evolution of the fertility rate.

While most scenarios still predict continued growth into the 22nd century, there is a roughly 27% chance that the total population could stabilize or begin to fall before 2100. Longer-term speculative scenarios over the next two centuries can predict anything between runaway growth to radical decline (36.4 billion or 2.3 billion people in 2300), with the median projection showing a slight decrease followed by a stabilization around 9 billion people.

By 2070, the bulk of the world's population growth is predicted to take place in Africa: of the additional 2.4 billion people projected between 2015 and 2050, 1.3 billion will be added in Africa, 0.9 billion in Asia and only 0.2 billion in the rest of the world. Africa's share of global population is projected to grow from 16% in 2015 to 25% in 2050 and 39% by 2100, while the share of Asia will fall from 60% in 2015 to 54% in 2050 and 44% in 2100. The strong growth of the African population will happen regardless of the rate of decrease of fertility, because of the exceptional proportion of young people already living today. For example, the UN projects that the population of Nigeria will surpass that of the United States by 2050. The population of the more developed regions is slated to remain mostly unchanged, at 1.2 billion, as international migrations from high-growth regions compensate the fertility deficit of richer countries.

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