The world's population is set to hit eight billion next week in a key milestone for humanity, according to the United Nations.
The UN Population Division said that the population will continue to grow in the decades to come, with life expectancy set to increase to an average of 77.2 years by 2050.
By November 15, the number of humans on Earth will grow to eight billion, more than three times higher than the 2.5 billion global headcount in 1950.
The increase in life expectancy, as well as the number of people of childbearing age, has meant the UN predicts the world's population will continue growing to about 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and a peak of about 10.4 billion in the 2080s.
But the world's population growth rate, after a peak in the early 1960s, has decelerated dramatically to below 1 per cent in 2020, Rachel Snow of the UN Population Fund said.
That figure could potentially fall to around 0.5 percent by 2050 due to a continued decline in fertility rates, the United Nations projects.
In 2021, the average fertility rate was 2.3 children per woman over her lifetime, down from about five in 1950, according to the UN, which projects that number to fall to 2.1 by 2050.
'We've reached a stage in the world where the majority of countries and the majority of people in this world are living in a country that is below replacement fertility,' or roughly 2.1 children per woman, says Snow.
A key factor driving global population growth is that average life expectancy continues to increase: 72.8 years in 2019, nine years more than in 1990. And the UN predicts an average life expectancy of 77.2 years by 2050.



