I found the following information very interesting. It comes from a page titled “The global population will reach 7 billion this month; here are 7 things you didn’t know” (see below for source link). It’s true, the global population is expected to hit 7 billion people on October 31. And these are some facts you might not know:
- It took humans until 1800 for the world’s population to reach 1 billion. Now it only takes about 13 years to add another billion people — and every year, even though fertility is declining, our population increases by about 80 million people.
- …A thousand women die giving birth every day.
- Worldwide, women are having about half as many children as they did 50 years ago. Since 1950, the average size of a family declined from 6.0 to 2.5 people.
- In 1950, 1 in 5 children died before the age of 5. Today, 93 percent survive.
- By 2025, India is expected to have more people than China. About 3 billion people alone live in the emerging economies of China, India, Brazil and Indonesia.
- Young people make up 43 percent of the world’s population; in the least developed countries, they represent 60 percent of the population.
- The rate of growth of people age 60 or older is growing at twice the rate of the rest of the world’s population. By 2040, nearly 1 in 4 people will be over age 60.
[Source]
