Fewer people on earth – Diepresse.com
The population explosion with all its consequences is viewed by many as the greatest danger to the world. That now begins to change, because in a few decades the world population could shrink.
After the Second World War, the world experienced tremendous population growth: with an average fertility rate (number of children per woman per woman) from around five in 1950, the world population grew from then on 2.5 billion to 6.2 billion to the millennium turn and continues to be eight billion people. At the same time, the problems of feeding humanity and fighting poverty grew, as well as environmental pollution (energy and resource requirements, emissions, habitat loss, etc.).
However, we will have to say goodbye to this usual picture of a « population explosion » with all its dramatic consequences: « The world is currently experiencing a dramatic demographic change that leads from a rapid population growth in the past century in the current century », the renowned researchers David Bloom (Harvard), Michael Kuhn (IIA Laxenburg) and Klaus Prettner provide Vienna) im Finance and Development Magazine of the international monetary fund ((www.imf.org). As the main cause, you see the « unstoppable and rapid decline in fertility ». The birth rates decrease with increasing level of development and education- including because women lead a more self-determined life, are increasingly employed and later become mothers.
The global average of the fertility rate is currently 2.26, by 2050 it is likely to fall below the 2.1 mark, which is necessary for a stable population. This means that the world population will grow to around ten billion people by 2050, but will drop afterwards. The only exception to this trend is Africa, where the fertility rate is currently still four.
This has immense consequences that have long been felt in Japan and China and now also in Europe, where the fertility rates have been below two for decades (currently at 1.31 in Austria). It is obvious that the average age of the population increases, which leads to a shortage of workers and the social systems is very stressful. According to the researchers, however, there are also many other consequences of this reversal of population development for the world-from relieving the environment and a higher average level of education to resource changeover (e.g. from childcare to care) to shrinking sales markets. The falling innovative strength of companies is a particularly critical point – because young people typically have and implement new ideas.
Whether all of this is positive or negative for the future prosperity of humanity is currently open-as can be seen in the IMF report, there is a lively debate in specialist circles. « The political decision -makers would do well to attentive the worldwide discourse on the economic and social consequences of the demographic changes, » said the researchers.
The author led the research department of the « press » and is now a science communicator at AIT.
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