RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Brazilian population will reach its peak in the year 2043, according to a study by the University of Washington Medical School published on Tuesday, July 14th, by The Lancet, one of the world’s most renowned scientific journals.
The country, which had 211 million inhabitants in 2017, should reach 235 million in 2043 and then drop to 164 million in the 2100 base scenario. This would cause Brazil, today the 6th most populous country in the world, to drop to 13th position.
Projections were drawn for 195 countries based on factors such as fertility, mortality, and immigration and differ greatly from United Nations (UN) projections.
The challenge is to estimate the speed at which the demographic transition is occurring, a phenomenon by which societies with high mortality and fertility begin to experience low mortality and fertility.
This occurs in the wake of improved healthcare and greater educational and labor inclusion of women, as well as access to contraceptives. Combined, these factors tend to defer the timing of marriage and childbearing.
Brazil is an example of an accelerated demographic transition: from an average of six children per woman in the 1960s, it now has a rate near 1.7.
The rate of population maintenance is 2.1 children per woman; below that, the population tends to drop unless it is offset by immigrants.
This has powerful impacts on the economy. The study estimates that Brazil would hold the 8th highest GDP until 2050, and then be overtaken by Australia, Nigeria, Canada, Turkey, and Indonesia, ranking 13th in 2100.
World
The study estimates that the global population of 7.6 billion recorded in 2017 would rise to a peak of 9.73 billion in 2043 and then drop to 8.7 billion by 2100 in the baseline scenario. This is two billion fewer people than the UN projects.
According to the same calculations, 23 countries, including Thailand and Spain, are expected to experience declines in population of over 50 percent in the period. Others such as Japan, Greece, Italy, and Portugal have already left their population peak behind and are in decline.
China, currently the most populous country in the world with almost 1.4 billion inhabitants, would reach its peak soon, in four years, and then lose 48 percent of its population by 2100. India, now the world’s second-most populous country, would grow to 1.6 billion by 2048.
Some countries with fertility rates below those required for replacement, according to the study, will offset the losses through greater net immigration. This is the case in the United States, Australia, and Canada.
And there are countries with fertility rates that should cause them to grow in population until at least 2100; many are located in Central Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
This would create new population powers like Nigeria, which would grow from 206 million today to 790 million 80 years from now, as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Tanzania, which would also join the top 10 of the world’s largest populations by 2100.
The planet’s age pyramid is also expected to radically change: the number of children under five is projected to drop from 681 million in 2017 to 401 million in 2100, while the number of people over age 80 would rise from 141 million in 2017 to 866 million in 2100.
Consequences
The lower population growth has a positive aspect: it places less pressure on natural resources, and therefore on global warming, and reduces the need for land for food production.
The downside is that lower population growth should translate into slower economic growth, as older people tend to produce less innovation and consume fewer durable goods than younger people.
In addition, aging creates increasing pressure on social protection and welfare systems, built and sustained in today’s age structure and labor markets.
The study mentions the risk that, given this challenge, some countries will consider adopting policies that restrict women’s access to control their reproductive rights, while there are other approaches.
These include providing economic and social support so that women can have children without this implying losing their careers, as well as productively including all age groups.
Encouraging immigration to attractive countries can also be an option, and is advocated by the vast majority of economists, but it also faces political resistance.
Source: Exame