Developed Country population from 17% to over 50% of World by 2050

The population of the World’s developed countries is currently a little over 1.3 billion people. This is about 17% of the world population today and will be about 50% of the world population by 2050.

China, Mexico, Thailand and Turkey will join the developed countries by 2030. The developed countries will be about 3 billion out of 8.5 billion in 2030. This will be 35%.

India and most of the rest of Asia will join the developed ranks by 2050. This will be 5.5 billion out of 10 billion.

Very-high Developed and high income

The Human Development Index (HDI) which has become the standard for a measuring country’s level of development. Countries are put into four classes of development by HDI:
very high (1-0.8),
high (0.8-0.7),
medium (0.7-0.55),
low (below 0.55).

China is currently at 0.752 on the HDI ranking. At a pace of 0.004 improvement per year then China will reach very high ranking by 2030.

Mexico, Thailand and Turkey will join the developed countries ranks at about the same time as China.

China, Mexico, Thailand and Turkey reaching the ranks of the developed countries will more than double the population of developed countries to about 3 billion.

The World Bank income level ranking has a close correlation to the Human Development Index.

China will move into the high-income ranking income category around 2023.

Rest of Asia moving to developed by 2050

Indonesia and the Philippines will be moving from low-middle income to upper middle income in 2020. India and Vietnam will reach upper-middle-income around 2026. Around 2040, they should all reach high-income ranking.

30 thoughts on “Developed Country population from 17% to over 50% of World by 2050”

  1. Sounds good news that 50% of the population will live in developed countries. This means more of the Earth’s resources will be consumed than the planet can regenerate. I believe in the future, the poultry we will today will be a luxury like caviar as lab grown meat will be mainstream.

  2. Yeah, I would feel safer living off planet. Earth is run by untrustworthy primates.

    “Take me out to the black. Tell them I ain’t coming back.”

  3. That’s great! If we can just keep our respective governments from rocking the boat and messing things up, we can hopefully raise the standard of living for the majority of people on the planet.

  4. “That’s an Earth I wouldn’t want to live on.”

    UNDER. If the cities are all tunnels you’ll be living UNDER, not ON.

  5. Climate change wont do anything perceptible to the economy. It wont happen fast enough for it to affect us. Most likely population will rise until women are educated around the earth. Earth easily has a carry capacity in the 100s of billions. We havent even started tunneling our cities yet.

  6. The HDI calculation shouldn’t use GNI or GDP. The calculation should be based on results. It should included quality of life issues like crime, corruption, pollution, freedom, ethnic strife, and homelessness. It should be median based rather than average.

    The determination of a Developed Country should be more of an absolute measurement than a relative measurement. There should be thresholds like 30% college educated, 90% literacy rate, male life expectancy of 70 yrs. Homelessness of less than 5%. If you don’t cross all of the thresholds then you are not a developed nation. If you do then you are without regards to GNI.

  7. Your long analysis assumes the world is run by rational men and women. Woops.

    There’s enough technology to lift everyone out of poverty today, right this second. Wonder why that never happens?

  8. 9 billion is a low estimate. Sea level rise can be dealt with by making islands. Ideally, they should make these artificial islands at least 100 ft high. I think we can make at least 5m square miles where it is economically advantageous. Whatever the volume of sea sediment is lifted above sea level reduces the ocean volume by that much. 2,200 cubic miles = 1 inch of ocean. 5 million miles of 100 feet would reduce sea level by 43 inches. I don’t know who is thinking sea level rise will be that substantial. In any case, islands will almost certainly be built. And we can pump desalinated water onto the center of Antarctica where it will quickly freeze if we are desperate.
    We can drop ocean levels by a few inches without much investment or difficulty, and I don’t expect it to rise much more than that due to global warming. Even absurd sea level rise can be dealt with (up to 113 ft according to my calculation) as long as Antarctica stays sub zero. We can stack the ice to 5000m thick fairly safely on Antarctica and Greenland. But if it gets too thick it will liquefy at the bottom and stuff could really start to move. There are probably 3 million usable square miles for placing ice on Antarctica. And we can probably add about 1 mile of ice to that area on average. So, 3m cubic miles.

    No, I expect population to boom. But after we add efficiencies like recycling sewage, and trash, increase cooling efficiency, build better insulated and regulated smart homes, and more efficient transportation. At least part of our food could be chemically synthesized, and part could be tissue culture. Together they may be more than 50% of the calories consumed in the world.
    Human biology itself may be made more efficient. If we can drop body temperature 7 degrees C we can cut calorie need to maybe 30%, and probably lower while increasing lifespans to over 300 years. That requires re-engineering enzymes or borrowing them, as we are the temperature we are, because our enzymes operate optimally at our temperature. Bowhead whales live over 200 years because they are 3.4C degrees cooler, having different enzymes. We could sustain 3x as many people, and with other savings, perhaps 100x or 1,000x as many people.

    While I do think there is global warming to some degree, and that there has been a small increase in sea level, I am not yet convinced that increasing temps are what is causing the sea level rise. I think a lot of material is being lost from the continents, and volcanic ash from eruptions can also add up when it falls on the ocean or is washed into the ocean. This reduces the holding capacity of the oceans. There were large quantities of minerals lost to the oceans because deforestation increased erosion. Large quantities are also lost through sewage being pumped out into the ocean…or just put directly into the rivers. Fill your tub then put a brick in it…sea level rise. Once there is a dam across the Amazon some of this should end.

  9. Maybe so, but will this distribution be reached by rising living standards, or by massive die offs in undeveloped nations?

  10. If sea levels keep rising, kiss 70-80% of global GDP goodbye. After that we get the water wars / resource wars.

    It’s foolish to even think the human population will get even close to 9 billion. It won’t heh.

  11. That’s great! If we can just keep our respective governments from rocking the boat and messing things up, we can hopefully raise the standard of living for the majority of people on the planet.

  12. Your long analysis assumes the world is run by rational men and women. Woops.

    There’s enough technology to lift everyone out of poverty today, right this second. Wonder why that never happens?

  13. 9 billion is a low estimate. Sea level rise can be dealt with by making islands. Ideally, they should make these artificial islands at least 100 ft high. I think we can make at least 5m square miles where it is economically advantageous. Whatever the volume of sea sediment is lifted above sea level reduces the ocean volume by that much. 2,200 cubic miles = 1 inch of ocean. 5 million miles of 100 feet would reduce sea level by 43 inches. I don’t know who is thinking sea level rise will be that substantial. In any case, islands will almost certainly be built. And we can pump desalinated water onto the center of Antarctica where it will quickly freeze if we are desperate.
    We can drop ocean levels by a few inches without much investment or difficulty, and I don’t expect it to rise much more than that due to global warming. Even absurd sea level rise can be dealt with (up to 113 ft according to my calculation) as long as Antarctica stays sub zero. We can stack the ice to 5000m thick fairly safely on Antarctica and Greenland. But if it gets too thick it will liquefy at the bottom and stuff could really start to move. There are probably 3 million usable square miles for placing ice on Antarctica. And we can probably add about 1 mile of ice to that area on average. So, 3m cubic miles.

    No, I expect population to boom. But after we add efficiencies like recycling sewage, and trash, increase cooling efficiency, build better insulated and regulated smart homes, and more efficient transportation. At least part of our food could be chemically synthesized, and part could be tissue culture. Together they may be more than 50% of the calories consumed in the world.
    Human biology itself may be made more efficient. If we can drop body temperature 7 degrees C we can cut calorie need to maybe 30%, and probably lower while increasing lifespans to over 300 years. That requires re-engineering enzymes or borrowing them, as we are the temperature we are, because our enzymes operate optimally at our temperature. Bowhead whales live over 200 years because they are 3.4C degrees cooler, having different enzymes. We could sustain 3x as many people, and with other savings, perhaps 100x or 1,000x as many people.

    While I do think there is global warming to some degree, and that there has been a small increase in sea level, I am not yet convinced that increasing temps are what is causing the sea level rise. I think a lot of material is being lost from the continents, and volcanic ash from eruptions can also add up when it falls on the ocean or is washed into the ocean. This reduces the holding capacity of the oceans. There were large quantities of minerals lost to the oceans because deforestation increased erosion. Large quantities are also lost through sewage being pumped out into the ocean…or just put directly into the rivers. Fill your tub then put a brick in it…sea level rise. Once there is a dam across the Amazon some of this should end.

  14. Climate change wont do anything perceptible to the economy. It wont happen fast enough for it to affect us. Most likely population will rise until women are educated around the earth. Earth easily has a carry capacity in the 100s of billions. We havent even started tunneling our cities yet.

  15. The HDI calculation shouldn’t use GNI or GDP. The calculation should be based on results. It should included quality of life issues like crime, corruption, pollution, freedom, ethnic strife, and homelessness. It should be median based rather than average.

    The determination of a Developed Country should be more of an absolute measurement than a relative measurement. There should be thresholds like 30% college educated, 90% literacy rate, male life expectancy of 70 yrs. Homelessness of less than 5%. If you don’t cross all of the thresholds then you are not a developed nation. If you do then you are without regards to GNI.

  16. If sea levels keep rising, kiss 70-80% of global GDP goodbye. After that we get the water wars / resource wars.

    It’s foolish to even think the human population will get even close to 9 billion. It won’t heh.

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