The headlines from India last November seemed anachronistic: “Web of Incentives in Fatal Indian Sterilizations” and “Deaths Put Spotlight on Indian Sterilization Camps”. The days of forced sterilisation must be behind us, aren’t they? Isn’t demographic pressure taking care of itself in the 21st century, through economic growth and development? If anything, aren’t we worried about population declines in G-7 economies, instead of the opposite elsewhere?
Not exactly. The UN Population Division gives us global population projections, which often are confused as predictions. They are not. Trendlines in global population are revised as new data arrives – and typically, projections are revised upwards. As of 2012, the UN’s medium variant projection would take global population to nearly 11 billion people by 2100. But the accompanying high variant yields more than 16 billion – over twice current population levels – based on the simple addition of one-half a child per woman of reproductive age. These projections may be conservative.
