Introduction

In the first part of Population Series we saw how the world population has expanded tremendously in the last 60 years. Most of the growth occurred in the developing world. Now I want to dig deeper into that growth pattern.

If one looks beyond the world population dynamics, however, there are many subtleties on state and regional level. Imagine this as a galaxy – a group of stars large and small, whirling around on their own separate orbits.

Let’s see where the differences are.

Growing Giants

World population will not grow evenly. In fact, it will grow on spikes. One really, really big spike will be Sub-Saharan Africa, and Western and Middle Africa in particular. All in all, the population of Sub-Saharan Africa will double until 2050 according to the UN Population Division. It will grow from 863 million today to 1,75 billion in 2050. Countries like Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo will see tremendous growth rates – from 80% to 170%.

Another important group will be led by India, including Pakistan and Afghanistan. In this group India will have moderate population growth (32% for the period 2010-2050), but its sheer size means that in 2050 it will host 17,6% of the world population - the most populated state in the world. Pakistan and Afghanistan will have really strong growth rates (80% and 160% respectively).

China is in a league of its own. It will be smaller than India in 2050, but it will still represent over 15% of the world population. The population growth rate, however, will be only 4% for four decades.

Fountain of Youth

These impressive rates of growth will also be accompanied by the so-called “youth bulges” - where children and young adults make up 40 percent or more of the adult population. Most of these “youth bulges” will remain in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the proportion of youth populations will actually decrease. I’ll come back to the importance of that process in the next part of the series.

Old and Poor

On the other side of the spectrum there will be those developing countries where societies will be aging. This will be the case for many island nations in the Carribean and Cuba in particular, but also countries like Mexico, Brazil Chile and Sri Lanka. China will also age considerably until 2050.

The Sex Difference

For various reasons people use the new diagnostics technologies to preselect the sex of their babies, or tolerate higher mortality among baby girls. This trend is particularly strong in regions of China, countries in Central Asia, and India. According to the Economist, there are quite serious deviations from the natural ratio of 105 boys to 100 girls at birth in these countries. This trend is particularly strong for the second and third birth of a woman in these regions.

Gravity Matters

All these spiky demographic developments have their own impact on the social and economic processes in the developing countries. You may think of them as the gravity of large celestial bodies that is impacting even quite distant stars and planets. I’ll be looking more into these impacts in the next parts of the Population Series.