Global population growth peaked six decades ago (thelemmy.club)

submitted 1 day ago by beep@piefed.world to c/dataisbeautiful@lemmy.world

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The chart shows the annual rate of global population growth according to historical estimates and projections from the UN World Population Prospects.

The growth rate peaked in 1963 at over 2% per year, and since then, it has more than halved, falling to less than 1% by 2020.

The UN demographers expect rates to continue falling until the end of the century, eventually leading to negative growth rates and a shrinking global population.

Source: Our World in Data.

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[-] ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 5 points 22 hours ago

So... The baby boom.

[-] chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago

I hate this graph. First, the ceiling is 2.5%, but the floor is -0.5%, which skews the data to look more impressive at the top end and show the floor more drastically. The second is that it starts at 1950, skips 30 years, and then goes in 20 year segments. Third is that half of the graph is guess work. Sure, maybe it's a good guess, but estimating population growth 80 years into the future based on information from the baby boomer generation is wild. Over all, this is a graph with an agenda. Maybe the agenda is needed and necessary, but math isn't biased. Math is absolute. Skewing the math to make it say what you want it to say is bad practices.

[-] bridgeburner@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

What makes u think the prediction is based on the Baby Boomer Generation? I think the prediction is very much rather based on how the fertility rate drops the further a country develops. Higher education levels and better living conditions have shown to reduce the fertility rate in western countries, and now that developing countries are catching up, we can expect (and we see that already) that their fertility rates are dropping as well, hence being a good basis to estimate the future total population numbers.

[-] CapuccinoCoretto@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Interesting, but not beautiful.

[-] Eternal192@anarchist.nexus 10 points 1 day ago

Is that a bad thing?

We are running out of space to support the population.

Standard of life is shit at best.

Future generations will curse us for bringing into the world.

[-] inari@piefed.zip 1 points 1 day ago

Standard of life won't necessarily improve with fewer workers

[-] Eternal192@anarchist.nexus 3 points 1 day ago

And certainly won't improve when you have hungry children waiting for you while you are working 2 jobs.

Before you could fund your entire household with 1 income and the result was a population boom and the decline started when the standard of life started declining.

[-] Iconoclast@feddit.uk 0 points 1 day ago

Is that a bad thing?

It is for the increasingly small number of working age people having to pay the retirement and medical expenses of the increasingly large number of old people.

[-] Eternal192@anarchist.nexus 5 points 1 day ago

People are unable to afford groceries for themselves and having even 1 or 2 children on an already strained budget and that budget is from both parents working 2 jobs.

The retirement system was conceptualised in an age when 1 household could support itself with 1 income while having 3-5 children and could also afford a car, house and vacation, none of that is possible these days and keeps getting worse so declining population is the direct consequence for worsening standard of life.

this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2026

37 points (86.3% liked)

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