Brazil loses position to Nigeria and is expected to become the 7th most populous country

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil will soon abandon its position as the sixth most populous nation in the world. With accelerated growth, Nigeria will pass the country later this year, unseating it to the seventh position, according to projections in a UN report published on Monday, July 11.

It is estimated that Brazil will reach the end of this year with 215.3 million inhabitants. The nation on the west coast of Africa will reach 218.5 million. The Nigerian growth rate draws attention, which 50 years ago had a population equivalent to 60% of Brazil’s in the same period.

The numbers are part of the World Population Prospects report, whose edition this year brings new estimates considering the Covid pandemic. For Brazil, the document helps fill a data gap left by the absence of the Demographic Census, postponed for two consecutive years – the latest edition is from 2010.

Brazil should reach its population peak in 2046, with 231.1 million inhabitants, then decline, reaching the end of the century with about 184.5 million – 14% less than today.

Thus, the country will arrive in 2100 outside the list of the ten most populated countries in the world – it should be in 11th position, followed by the archipelago of the Philippines. It will be overtaken by the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United States, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Tanzania, and Egypt.

As a consequence of the health crisis, the country has witnessed a decrease in life expectancy, a phenomenon that has occurred worldwide. In Brazil, however, the drop was more significant. From 75.3 years in 2019, life expectancy for Brazilians went to 72.8 last year (a decline of 2.5 years). Globally, the average drop was 1.8 years (from 72.8, it went to 71 years).

As in the world, however, the number tends to be recovered – in the Brazilian case, starting in 2023. The projections show that the country can reach 2050 with an expectation of 81.3 years. One hundred years earlier, in 1950, when monitoring began, it was calculated that Brazilians would live, on average, 48 years.

Following the trend demonstrated in the previous report, from 2019, the current document shows that the growth rate of the Brazilian population corresponds to almost half that of the global average -0.45% per year against 0.84%, respectively. Hence, the country’s population entered into decline four decades earlier than the global population.

Nigeria, for comparison purposes, has an average annual growth rate of 2.3% and should more than double in size by the end of the century, reaching 546 million inhabitants and occupying third place in the ranking of the most populous countries, behind India and China.

The number of children has decreased proportionally to the number of women in Brazil, one of the factors that make up the equation that explains the country’s scenario. In 2022, for each woman, an average of 1.6 children will be born – a figure that tends to be maintained until the end of the century. Sixty years ago, this number was six births per woman.

The recently released report also shows the accelerated aging of the population. While in 1950, only 2.4% of Brazilians were over 65 years old, this number will reach nearly 10% in 2022 and should exceed one-third of the Brazilian population by the end of the century, with 33.5% of older adults.

The growth is even more remarkable when it comes to even older people, those over 80. Today this group represents only 1.7% of the Brazilian population, but the figure should jump almost eightfold to reach 14.8% of the population by the end of the century.

With information from Folha de S.Paulo