Seven Billion Day: Why we'll all soon be fretting that the 全住民 of the world is 縮むing

By Fred Pearce
Updated: 00:58 BST, 30 October 2011

Tomorrow is Seven Billion Day, によれば the 国際連合. The day we resuscitate our 恐れるs about th e 全住民 爆弾. You can follow the countdown second by second online at www.worldometers.info/world-全住民.

It’s a stirring moment, and a scary one. In the past century, the world’s 全住民 has 増加するd fourfold. And it is only 12 years since we 示すd six billion people.

But there are two things wrong with this 目印. First, we have no idea when the human race truly 会合，会うs seven billion.

Guessing game: In reality, the world's 全住民 might not reach seven billion for another eight years

I don’t mean the UN could be a day or two out, or even a month or so. Many 独立した・無所属 demographers say the UN has jumped the gun. 早期に 2013 is their best guess, but it could be as late as 2019.

The second problem is that all that hype about runaway 全住民 growth is wrong, too. It 簡単に isn’t so.

The Seven Billion Day doesn’t really 事柄 much. It’s just a PR stunt. But if we are getting today’s numbers wrong, then we are getting 予測（する）s of 未来 numbers wrong, too. And that could 事柄 a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定, 誤って導くing us about everything from 気候 change to our prospects for feeding the world ? and maybe even about the long-称する，呼ぶ／期間／用語 未来 of humanity.

The demographic doomsters ? 子孫s of that 広大な／多数の／重要な Victorian doom-monger, the Rev （頭が）ひょいと動く Malthus ? 恐れる that the world’s 全住民 is 運命にあるd to carry on rising through this century and on into the next, with Europeans ever more より数が多いd by teeming hordes of Africans and Asians. But the truth is that big families are going out of fashion 世界的な.

The stats 示唆する that we will most likely reach ‘頂点（に達する） 全住民’ by 中央の-century. Then we could see 落ちるing numbers, with a shrivelling 全住民 of old people living in ghost towns with no young people left to care for them.

Still growing strong: 専門家s 推定する／予想する the world 全住民 to continue 拡大するing until the middle of the century

First, that seven billion 目印. How much do we know?

長，率いる-counting is a 襲う，襲って強奪するs’ game. Most countries have a 国勢（人口）調査 only every ten years. Many African countries 港／避難所’t had one for much longer than that. Even in rich nations, up to three people in every hundred don’t get counted, either acc identally or deliberately.

Remember how many people ‘disappeared’ from the British 国勢（人口）調査 when Margaret Thatcher introduced the 投票 税金? The 国勢（人口）調査 boffins try to adjust the numbers, but who knows how successful they are?

To keep up to date, they have to guess what has happened since the last 国勢（人口）調査. How many births and deaths, and migrants in and out. Imagine doing that in the teeming slums of Cairo or in India’s million villages. Calculating 急速な／放蕩な-changing birth 率s is 特に hard.

Then politics gets in the way. The UN recently upped its 見積（る） of the 全住民 of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, by more than ten million に引き続いて a 国勢（人口）調査 ? a 国勢（人口）調査 that Lagos political scientist Bamgbose Adele says was ‘no way different from the past falsified ones in Nigeria’.

Not making 国勢（人口）調査: 国勢（人口）調査 forms could be an unreliable way to calculate 全住民 size

The trouble is that in Nigeria, 州s get money from central 政府 によれば their 宣言するd 全住民s. So they 直す／買収する，八百長をする the numbers.

Pakistan, the sixth-biggest nation, has not had a 国勢（人口）調査 since 1998. Everyone knows its 全住民 is rising 急速な／放蕩な , but this year the UN 減ずるd its 見積（る） from 185?million to 177?million. That’s like ‘losing’ the whole 全住民 of London.

まっただ中に this 不確定, it’s 平易な to be 脅すd about 急に上がるing world 全住民 ? and it has 二塁打d in the past 40 years. But buried in the 統計（学） there is a very different, very encouraging success story.

Whisper it 静かに, but the world is 信管を取り除くing the 全住民 爆弾. Most countries will never again 二塁打 their 全住民s.

Some countries already have 落ちるing 全住民s. And many more, 含むing 中国, will have stable 全住民s within a １０年間 or so. ‘頂点（に達する） 全住民’ may be here soon.

The 推論する／理由 is a hidden 革命 going on across the world. A reproductive 革命. UN 統計（学） say that the 普通の／平均（する） woman in the world today has just 2.5 children. That is half as many as their mothers and grandmothers had 40 years ago, when people of my 世代 first learned to 恐れる the ‘全住民 爆弾’. In India, the 人物／姿／数字 is 2.8. In Brazil it is 2.2. In Iran, amazingly, it is about 1.8.

These numbers may not be 位置／汚点／見つけ出す-on. But the downward 傾向 is （疑いを）晴らす, big and 全世界の.

?Admittedly, 2.5 children per woman is still more than the 2.3 demographers calculate we need to keep up numbers. (The 0.3 許すs for girls who don’t reach adulthood.) But most of the world is 長，率いるing where Europe already is: to below 交替／補充 fertility. The European 普通の／平均（する） today is 1.6.

It’s 半端物 that the 全住民 doom-mongers don’t seem to want to tell us about this 革命. Even the family-planning people are loath to 収容する／認める their success. When I ask them, they say that if they began 誇るing, they would lose 基金ing. What a shame.

Let’s be （疑いを）晴らす. The world’s 全住民 is still growing. But it looks as if the end is in sight. We will get to eight billion, maybe nine billion, but that could be about it.

One 予期しない 推論する／理由 is urbanisation. Teeming megacities such as Sao Paulo and Mumbai may look like symbols of overpopulation, but 現実に they are part of the 解答. Here’s why. On a 小作農民 farm, kids are useful from an 早期に age, helping with the 収穫 or looking after the goats. They are an 経済的な 資産. Poor families need them.

But most of the world now lives in cities. And in cities, children are an 経済的な 重荷（を負わせる）. Getting them educated can be expensive, but without education they will probably never get a 職業. Almost every country finds that as people move to the cities, they have より小数の children. And most people are urbanites today.

That’s one 推論する／理由 why I am willing to bet that if I live to be 100 ? that’s 41 years away ? we won’t be worrying about rising 全住民 any more. We will be worrying instead about 落ちるing numbers. And about something else that happens when you stop having babies ? ageing.

We fret in Europe these days that there are too many old people and not enough young people. That’s why the 政府 wants later 退職. But this is going to become a 全世界の 現象. We have never lived in a world where most people are old. We soon will.

I don’t think we are doomed by ageing, but I do think our world will be profoundly changed.

The 20th Century was the 時代 of the young. It was a century of 経済的な good times, 急に上がるing 全住民, industrialisation, baby-boomers and はびこる 消費. The 21st Century will be the 時代 of the old; of low growth in 全住民 and economies.

It may be duller, but I like to think it might be wiser, too, with the 部族の 年上のs taking centre 行う／開催する／段階. It could be our 救済.

lFred Pearce is author of Peoplequake: 集まり 移住. Ageing Nations And The Coming 全住民 衝突，墜落 (Eden 事業／計画（する） 調書をとる／予約するs, £8.99).

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