The UN has their latest world population projections.
Overall Annual Global Deaths Will Double Over the Next 60 Years
The overall level of absolute annual deaths will be increasing from 60 million per year to about 80 million by 2050 and 100 million by 2070. The annual global death rate will average an increase by 1 million per year now to 2080.
The projections assume that countries with over 77 years of life expectancy may add 3-7 years of life expectancy by 2050. This assumption could be incorrect if aging reversal technology is developed and widely deployed. The longest-lived countries could reach life expectancy of about 90 without major medical breakthroughs.
Most of the developed world will have 25%+ people over 65 by 2050-2070. This would be higher if there is aging reversal technology but in that case those people would have the health and vitality of younger people.
If the fertility rate stabilized at about 1 without radical antiaging then there would be a halving of the population based about 1.5 times the life expectancy after the population increase flattened. This halving or near halving of the total national population is what is expected for Japan, China, Italy and Russia. This is based upon 20-50 years of low birthrates and fertility rates. It was how much below the 2.1 fertility rates countries fall.
Japan is expected to drop from a population peak of 128 million into the range of 60-70 million around 2100.
China is expected to drop from a population peak of around 1.4-1.45 billion down into the 750 million range around 2100.
The decline would not stop if the fertility rates stayed that low.
The countering to the ultra-long term effect is that as the low birth and low fertility people rapidly shrink themselves then the higher birth rate families will become more statistically dominant.
Think of a petri dish where you hit a bacterial colony with something that kills 90% of the population. The remaining population is immune and the colony size is restored in a few bacterial generations.
Humanity will have a future which will be full of the descendants of people who keep breeding live and keep breeding.
Birth Rates and Other Factors
They will print specific numbers for 2050 and 2100 but then they will include charts and graphs which show the large uncertainty out in 2100 and significant uncertainty in 2050. There is also uncertainty for estimates of todays population and figures from a decade ago or more.
There are many countries in Africa that have not performed any kind of proper census or count for decades. There have been claims that China has lied and distorted some of its census figures.
It is clear that birthrates are dropping and most of the developed world has peaked in population via births. There are countries like Canada and Australia which have aggressive immigration policies. Canada was able to increase its population by nearly 1 million from 38.5 to 39.4 million people in 2022 by immigrating in 400,000 people and having semi-permenant residency for another 300,000 people.
Most African countries are doubling their population from now to 2050.
Pakistan doubled its population from 1990 to 2022 and may get close to doubling again by 2050.
Indonesia should add more than 50% to its population.
Africa, south Asia and the middle east are the last main areas of significant population growth via birth rate.
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Should population matter? Does a greater population (read: above replacement rate and with reduced deaths/ time of aging) mean a greater likelihood of hyper-productive-brilliant minds existing for facilitating the next Big Thing? I personally believe not, but apparently some industries require that and it is one major reason we can’t have all the Nice Things we deserve (and awesome AGI may not help much):
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/01/the-extreme-shortage-of-high-iq-workers.html
Old people die at a faster rate than the general population, especially the very old. One of the results of the baby boom is a large population of seniors going into their late 70s and early 80s. And yes, most of them won’t make it to the 100s.
A deeper analysis perhaps is that by natural selection only the kind ofpeople who are willing to bring more children to the world will remain in this world very soon by the process of natural selectin. So the end result is more optimistic. Humanity will survive with much less people which is good for the planet and humanity.
Personally, I’d be happy if they find a way to make the elder year less insufferable.
At least, allow you to keep your marbles and some muscular capability, to walk around and fend for yourself at a basic level.
No matter if we go at more or less the same age we usually do, save us from the indignity of being a burden for others.
But yeah, having that probably passes through hacking the systems that make us old in general.
Chances are high that anything significantly effecting old age health would have a knock on effect on life span too.
“The projections assume that countries with over 77 years of life expectancy may add 3-7 years of life expectancy by 2050. This assumption could be incorrect if aging reversal technology is developed and widely deployed.”
This is another way of saying that this assumption is incorrect. Likewise, radical life extension would also make it incorrect. But bear in mind that it may be unreasonable to assume that either of these technologies could be attained for a daily cost less that than that of a fancy caffeinated beverage at Starbucks.
For better or for worse, this would put it out of reach of most of the world’s population, most especially in those places where the birthrate has not dropped below replacement, although their elites would certainly have access to it (for better or, more likely, for worse).
Many people in advanced economies do not have adequate savings for retirement, for both them and their countries, advances that could keep them from getting too decrepit to work would seem a godsend.
This halving or near halving of the total national population is what is expected for Japan, China, Italy and Russia.
Italy and Japan could likely afford life extension treatments, while this is not likely for China and Russia and certain other belligerent states. This could also be a positive in that it would force them to reduce their aggressive belligerence–despite the likelihood that Putin Controlled Russia attempted to seize Ukraine to bolster its own sagging population numbers.
Many people, Elon Musk among them, are concerned that the reduction in births below replacement may pose an existential threat in that it may be irreversible. Much like the supposed concerns about London becoming buried in horse manure, it is to be expected that this might not really be a concern in the long run.
“Humanity will have a future which will be full of the descendants of people who keep breeding live and keep breeding.”
The future is not going to be “Meet the Duggers.” All of us are the descendants of people (and before that, creatures) that managed to meet or exceed replacement birth rate for around 3.7 billion years. It has not been bred out of us in a couple of centuries.With things like radical life extension, age-reversal, cyborgs (advanced prostheses), AI/SI, man-machine interfaces, and many other changes, seemingly just around the corner, I am sanguine about the continuance of the human race in the face of falling birth rates. The planet probably should not have to support more than about a billion people anyway, and much better that we get there by attrition (and a partial hiring freeze) than by any other means.
The fertility rates are going to begin to be effected in 30 years by artificial wombs, already experimentally used on calves. See this video from 5 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBduslyq2rA and a complete list on artificial wombs here: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=artificial+wombs
There’s only about 20 weeks in human development that needs to be filled in with artificial wombs. We can already grow an embryo in a Petri dish for up to a month and incubators work more-or-less well from 6.5 months forward; the incubators could be replaced by more reliable artificial wombs if they became available at the earlier stages. If they are available at earlier stages, they will automatically be more effective in months 6-9 of gestation, which in turn will accelerate their development in the near future. By 5-10 years from now, they will be in limited commercial use in countries with low fertility, for couples with individual fertility problems or genetic conditions that will also be correctable at the same time as using artificial wombs.
In China, Japan, and even some European countries that don’t have/want to, use immigration to solve demographic collapse, having Artificial Gestation (AG, as it may come to be called, shorthand), will be seen as not dystopian, but as a human, feminist, right. Pregnancy still kills or injures millions of women a year, even in advanced countries. It also robs women of productive periods, sometimes years. This woman said she would use an artificial womb if her fertility condition required it (she discovered her condition while, ironically, filming this video on artificial wombs): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLYMAkgvZsI&t=2s.
Low birthrate countries facing pension collapses due to high number of older people – whether they are “old” at 65 or 85 – will have their own reasons for encouraging healthy, possibly genetically enhanced, babies to be born in artificial wombs.
Towards the end of the century, burgeoning growth in Mars’ and Moons’ cities will use artificial wombs in gravity assisted environments to boost population without having to carry people long distances in expensive spacecraft.
From a moral, technological and cost perspective no way this is happening in your lifetime or the next. It really is dystopian fantasy.
A certain segment of Republicans will insist this is linked to covid vaccines.
And another segment will link it to climate change, not using the correct pronouns, lack of adequate “gender care” and toxic masculinity.
And the other side, still wearing face coverings, will claim that boomers and silent gen taking their turn ‘coming of age’ is a ‘million excess deaths’.
And it probably is.
I think that a low fertility scenario is much more likely than a high fertility scenario. I would be very surprised if world population increased much beyond 9 billion, 10 billion max.
There will be so much more opportunity for the young people that do exist if the global population does contract. The world will be a better place less tread upon. It is so basic.
Meh. In regards to life expectancy, individual lifestyle choices, family genetics, and neighboring air and water conditions have a greater influence on how long, healthily, and well you’ll live over gender, culture, region, or other such factors. Who cares if such and such group increased life span by 10 years over the last few generations, when two people in the same part of the country, of the same gender and ethnic background, can vary in life expectancy over 20 years when one smokes, eats 5 times a week at KFC, drives to the local mailbox, drinks a Jack and 24-case a week, and hasn’t eaten a fruit or vegetable in a decade? And you think that any poorer country that ‘develops’ into a western style country will avoid such ‘choices’. Witness the fast-food-ification of south-east asia – they’ve never been so unhealthy.
I think it is high time that we start to use stats in a more granular analysis and track individual-type categories for health care, fitness, career-type, etc., to inform us on how we are living and working healthily and productively.