5.28 billion was the world population in 1990.
7.75 billion was the world population in 2020.
9.8 billion is the projected population for 2050.

In the 30 years from 1990 to 2020, the world population rose 46.8%.

That number is now projected to go down the next 30 years by almost 60%, with a global population rise of 26.5%.

Adding to that, it’s important to look at where most of the population growth is coming from.

638 million was the population of Africa in 1990.
1.3 billion was the 2020 population.
2.5 billion is the 2050 population.

Showing of the 2 billion people expected to be added in the next three decades, over 50% of it comes from just one continent.

What about the others continents/countries?

746 million is the population of Europe.

Europe is hard to factor for a handful of reasons, but according to EU projections, they are expecting 510 million people by 2030, but a decline for decades, to 465 million by the year 2100.

This being shown with countries with Italy seeing population declines, the UK seeing plateau in population and Germany will only see an increase due to immigration.

China is next, where they are expecting a slight population drop of 1.4 billion to 1.35 billion.

India will see the largest jump, hitting 1.6 billion by 2050, versus 1.38 billion today, becoming the largest in the world.

Asia as a whole sees a slight growth, going from 4.6 billion people to 5.3 billion.
This isn’t nearly as large as the 1990 to 2020 growth of 3.2 billion to 4.6 billion.

Final one is the US and that’s a tough growth to factor.

249 million was the 1990 population.
329 million is the current population.

2050 will be between 420 and 460 million based on immigration.

The growth in population is high, but it’s largely due to immigration, not birth rate.

Reason for writing this is Elon Musk saying in an interview, the biggest thing he’s concerned with is a declining population.

For almost all of history, a sign of wealth of a nation was a growing population.

Elon Musk and others are saying that, but now I’m beginning to think wealth could be seen in populations not growing.

19.7 years old is the average age in Africa.
63 is the life expectancy.

2050, the average age will be around 26-28 and life expectancy will grow to 72-74.

The actual birth rate won’t grow that much, but the amount of people surviving to see 40, 50, 60, 70 and 80+ goes up dramatically.

This to me means there’s a fashion, where people have many children as a form of need when economies are bad, but getting more advanced, kids become a joy over a need.

For the year 2050, it’s extremely likely seniors will have full mobility with self driving cars, they’ll all be proficient in computers/smart phones and it seems likely challenges that existed for seniors for most of time decline.

So is this a good or bad thing?

It’s an unknown thing.

We’ve never a single time in human history are about to see countries have less people as a product of increased wealth, versus the lack of it.

Obviously some people legitimately can’t afford to have a kid, which might be a factor in the US, but for Asia, Latin America and many parts of Europe, this is ability to not have kids is a new luxury.