As the world’s population tops eight billion we look at some of the countries facing the biggest challenges
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In July, the UN released its latest report on population trends, revealing that the world’s population could continue to grow until 2086, peaking at just over 10.4 billion people. This growth is partly the result of declining levels of mortality, particularly in children, and an increased life expectancy. But growth isn’t predicted everywhere. While an increase in the number of inhabitants in eight countries (the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and the United Republic of Tanzania) will amount to more than half of the total global increase up to 2050, populations are expected to start decreasing elsewhere. With the new UN report as a guide, we look at the population trends outlined in the UN report for four different locations.
China
China accounts for more than one-sixth of the total global population, but the world’s biggest nation is already shrinking. Since the 1960s, the number of inhabitants has doubled from roughly 700 million to more than 1.4 billion. As a result, in 1979, to reduce the risk of overpopulation, the government implemented a strict one-child policy, which included fines for non-compliance. In 2016, this was revised to a two-child policy and in 2021, after this failed to reverse the country’s falling birth rate, a three-child policy backed by tax relief and other incentives – it was too late.
In the late 1980s, China’s birth rate was 2.6; in 2021, it was 1.15 (in Japan, a country with a rapidly ageing population, it’s 1.3). Only ten million babies were born last year, the lowest number since 1949. China’s population has already started to decline, ten years earlier than predicted in the 2019 UN population report. By 2080, it may have fallen to below a billion people.
Several factors are behind the low birth rate, including the rising cost of living, the normalisation of smaller families and the entry of more Chinese women into higher education. Another consequence of the one-child policy is China’s relatively low number of women of child-bearing age, a phenomenon that Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen called the ‘missing women’ of China. Sex-selective abortion and an increased female infant mortality rate have led to a ratio of 120 boys (130 in some provinces) for every 100 girls.
According to the Chinese Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, China’s working-age population will fall 23 per cent by 2050. A shrinking labour force will drive up labour costs, pushing low-margin manufacturing into other high-labour countries such as India and Bangladesh. India, also a country of 1.4 billion people, is set to surpass China as the world’s most populous country by 2023.
Philippines
The Philippines is one of eight countries projected to be responsible for more than half of the expected increase in the world’s population up to 2050. With 115.6 million inhabitants across 298,170 square kilometres of islands, it’s already one of the most densely populated countries on the planet. That number is set to rise to 157.9 million by 2050.
The Philippines is also one of the world’s fastest urbanising countries; around 47 per cent of the population lives in urban areas and cities are quickly becoming overcrowded. The capital, Manila, has the highest population density in the world, with a staggering 73,920 people per square kilometre. Its urban infrastructure is ill-equipped to handle so many citizens. Streets and homes are regularly flooded due to poor or non-existent drainage, and a lack of affordable housing means that an estimated 11 per cent of Manila’s population lives in slums.
These challenges are exacerbated by the country’s low-lying archipelagic geography and its location on the Ring of Fire, which expose it to flooding, typhoons and earthquakes. In a 2019 report, Amnesty International named the Philippines the country most at risk from the climate crisis.
Madagascar
Rapid population growth in countries with high levels of poverty can exacerbate existing challenges, potentially leading to a vicious cycle in which struggling economies are unable to grow, leading to limited access to education and family planning, which perpetuates high birth rates and population growth.
In Madagascar, the population has been growing at a rate of three per cent per year for decades, and is projected to continue to grow through the rest of the century. Its current population is estimated to be 29.6 million; it’s expected to rise to 51.6 million by 2050. More than 70 per cent of the island nation’s inhabitants live below the international poverty line (US$2.15 a day), 85 per cent of them in rural areas, making it one of the poorest countries in the world.
Madagascar’s geography makes it very vulnerable to climate change, a contributing factor to its poverty. The island experiences an average of three natural disasters per year, including floods, tropical storms, cyclones and droughts. An estimated 25 per cent of the population, about five million people, lives in zones at high risk of natural disasters. Like many other countries experiencing rapid population growth, Madagascar’s agricultural sector struggles to feed its population, and almost half of all children experience stunting as a result of poor nutrition.
Women in Madagascar have an average of 4.11 children, rising to five in rural areas. According to UNICEF, early motherhood – before the age of 18 – is a growing trend among younger generations. Child marriage remains a reality; two in five girls marry before 18 and marriage before 15 is fairly common.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is one of the eight countries that will drive more than half of the projected global population increase up to 2050. The DRC’s population is expected to grow rapidly, by about three per cent per year, over the next 28 years, from 99.1 million to 217.5 million people. Its capital, Kinshasa, is already the continent’s most populous city. Like most countries across sub-Saharan Africa, the share of its population aged between 15 and 30 has been steadily increasing.
An estimated 70 per cent of people who reside in sub-Saharan Africa are under 30 years old; 42 per cent are under 15. By 2100, Africa’s youth population could be twice the size of Europe’s entire population. The ‘youth bulge’ is a phenomenon that occurs in many developing countries, often due to a reduction in the infant mortality rate and a continued high fertility rate. A growing young population means potential opportunities for economic growth and innovation, but in areas of conflict or instability, this demographic change can become a burden.
Across the continent, almost 16 million young Africans are facing unemployment. If unemployment rates continue to rise in the DRC, it could lead to a large, frustrated youth population. In 2013, Alexander Chikwanda, Zambia’s former finance minister, told the UN that youth unemployment in Africa was a ‘ticking time bomb’. According to the African Development Bank, it’s ‘significantly associated with an increase of the risk of political instability’ – the World Bank estimates that 40 per cent of people who join rebel movements around the world are motivated by a lack of economic opportunities.
