The world population is projected to reach eight billion on November 15, 2022, the United Nations (UN) said in its World Population Prospects 2022 report released on Monday.
The latest projections by the UN also suggest that the global population could grow to around 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050 and 10.4 billion in 2100.
India is expected to surpass China as the most populous country in 2023.
Population growth is caused in part by declining levels of mortality, as reflected in increased levels of life expectancy at birth, according to the UN.
The UN said life expectancy reached 72.8 years in 2019, an increase of almost nine years since 1990. Further reductions in mortality are projected to result in an average longevity of about 77.2 years globally in 2050, it added.
In 2021, the average fertility of the world’s population was 2.3 births per woman over a lifetime from about five births per woman in 1950.
The UN projects global fertility to decline further to 2.1 births per woman by 2050.
It also projects the Philippines to contribute to the global population increase until 2050.
“More than half of the projected increase in global population until 2050 will be concentrated in just eight countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and the United Republic of Tanzania,” the UN report read.
World Population Prospects 2022 was the twenty-seventh edition of the official estimates and projections of the global population that have been published by the UN since 1951. John Ezekiel J. Hirro