World's Population Could Exceed 10 Billion by 2100

The United Nations have just released a new, revised report detailing estimated population growth models set forth by researchers. According to the data, the world's population could exceed ten billion people by 2100, in the moderate estimate.

The UN continuously develops population projections, to help authorities develop policies and legislation that are in tune with people's demands. The new numbers were published in the 2010 Revision of World Population Prospects, Daily Galaxy reports. 

This rectification comes after the UN proposed, at the end of 2007, that the world would house 9 billion people by 2050. These estimates were based on the belief that the world population was 6.7 billion.

In the new assessment, the population is estimated to reach 7 billion, which means that more than 9.3 billion people could inhabit the Earth by 2050. By 2100, that number could increase to 10.1 billion.

The 2010 RWPP indicates that largely responsible for this increase will be a series of countries that have traditionally-high fertility rates. There are about 39 such countries in Africa, 9 in Asia, 6 in Oceania, and 4 in Central and South America.

One of the factors that will augment population growth is the constant increase in life expectancy, experts say. Between 2005 and 2010, the average person on the planet could expect to live about 68 years, but, between 2095 and 2100, that life expectancy will increase to 81.

On the other hand, high-fertility countries were statistically demonstrated to have lower-than-average life expectancy rates, at around 56 years. Still, their population is expected to increase from 1.2 to 4.2 billion people within the next 90 years or so.

During the same interval, the population of low-fertility countries – most nations in the developed world, including North America, Europe and Australia – will decrease. The UN expects the drop to be from 2.9 to 2.4 billion.

What is interesting to note about this study is that the prognosis does not take into account factors such as advancements in medicine, intelligence levels, the threat of natural or man-made disasters, progress in biological and nanotechnology engineering and so on.

Each of these aspects could therefore exert its own influence on the total number of people that will live on the planet by mid-century and 2100.