Talking about how the population has been affected by global conflicts, the current rise in population and why depopulation is the direction where countries are heading

All we seem to hear these days are statistics about the world's population and how there are too many people, not enough houses, not enough food, not enough water or not enough space for all these people. For example, we hear about natural disasters and how people are starving in developing nations due to a lack of food supply, this leads to a widespread hysteria of overpopulation and not having enough resources for ourselves to use in the near future, however this article aims to bring these false notions down and bring the truth to light.

From when humans first appeared on Earth, some 300,000 years ago, a whopping 105 billion people have lived on Earth, of whom 5.5% are alive today [1995] (Haub, 1995). Nowadays, that number is closer to 7.5%. The ‘agricultural revolution’ which “allowed humans to change from a hunting and gathering subsistence to one of agriculture and animal domestications” (ScienceDirect, 2018), as such populations quickly rose from small groups of dozens of people to large towns and cities in places like Egypt with tens of thousands of people, this increased density in population distribution slowly led to individual cultures and norms being built and in turn led to violence and wars being conducted, primarily in Europe, but almost everywhere else as well, with global population almost being stagnant with a “tenth of a population increase yearly until 1400” (worldometer, n.d.). This is when the first major dip in global population occurred with the Black Death in 1348, killing an approximate 25% of the global population in under a decade.” (Shipman, n.d.). Yet, those who survived had a stronger immune system and lived longer than those that perished, and compounded with the employers at the time that were trying to ensure there was still sufficient amount of manpower in the labour force caused a post-disaster rise in the population, this cycle would be one that consistently occurred throughout the various impactful periods of human history, leading to an average annual growth rate of “1.5% between the years 1400 and 1500” (worldometer, n.d.), the highest ever recorded in human history to that point.

The birth rates during the post-bubonic plague were lowered by 25% over the pre-plague birth rates, at 60 and 80 births per 10,000 people respectively, yet the population kept on growing at an astronomical rate, “approaching the one billion mark for the first time in 1804” (Wikipedia, n.d.), 300 thousand years after their predecessors first walked this Earth. This milestone closely coincided with the next major revolution, the industrial revolution, where there was the large industrialisation of economies with more efficient, but congregated output, requiring more manpower in the cities, with “15 million people moving to live in US cities in the last 2 decades of the 19th century.” (Library of Congress, n.d.), this also increased the number of mouths to feed and as a result the number of people working in agriculture, reaching 1.7 billion just before World War 1, with a continuous growth of between 1-1.5% between the black death and World War 1.

In the aftermath of World War 1, where an approximate “40 million civilian and military casualties occurred” (Wikipedia, n.d.), and a mere 2 years later, the Spanish flu hit, causing a further “100 million [Deaths], making it one of the deadliest pandemics in history.” (Wikipedia, n.d.). Yet after these 2 catastrophes, similar to the black plague, the demand to rebuild the damage down in World War 1 and the manpower required to do so, caused an era of prosperity known as the “roaring 20’s” with the better standards of living, improvements to the working class’ wages, working conditions and a growing economy globally with increased globalisation. Yet in the 30’s, with an increase in the population of 500 million people compared to 2 decades ago, it caused the stock market to surge upwards and eventually crash down upon itself, the first sign of instability and volatility that can be caused with a rapidly growing population. The world then found itself in another 2 decades of darkness where first the great depression hit (1929-1939) causing the death of millions of people and limiting the economic growth, furthermore, once the Great Depression ended it was replaced by WW2, an even more deadly event and causing the death of about “85 million people,” (Wikipedia, n.d.), by some higher estimates. Although this population growth during this period (1910 - 1945) stayed fairly controlled, the biggest population boom in the history of mankind was about to occur, in part due to increased globalisation, and also in part to the mass commercialization and production of the medical advancements from the first half of the 20th century.

The population steadily climbed to 3 billion by the year 1960, double what it was 30 years prior. However, from here on out, the population growth rate accelerated to an astounding 2% growth rate annually in the post-WW2 era. This large surplus of births is known as the “baby boomer” generation. This large boom can be attributed to a multitude of factors; however, mainly the improving healthcare and an old philosophy contributed to this. An easy way to explain this,  in the 19th century, mortality rates among infants were extremely high, and as a result, parents would often have 5 or 6 kids, with only 2 or 3 making it to adulthood, resulting in a fairly level population growth. 

In the 1900’s medical improvements surged in leaps and bounds, however, public access to vaccines only occurred post-WW2 for diseases like “yellow fever, whooping cough, influenza, 2 polio vaccines, and smallpox.” (World Health Organisation, n.d.). The latter 2 were the most impactful vaccines, as in the 1950s, smallpox was responsible for “15-30% of all deaths of infants [Below 1 year] in certain regions.” (Statista, n.d.). The effects of this were so drastic that the US went from having tens of thousands of cases annually to 0 cases in a mere decade. However, with this great improvement in life, it also inadvertently caused the rapid increase in population, as parents still had 5 or 6 kids; however, now, with all of them surviving, it has increased exponentially. This is why you may wonder how your grandparents had so many siblings in the first place. This period of booming growth existed for roughly 20 years before being replaced by the next generation, Gen X and early millennials. This generation was the first generation born into unrivalled levels of stability and health across the globe. This then caused the birth rate to steeply decline and the growth of population to decrease, resulting in where we are today, just past the 8 billion mark. In terms of the future, who knows what lies in store? Estimates for a century from now range from 3 billion to an astronomical 250 billion people; however, the most likely occurrence is a peak at around 2080 at 11 billion, where it will then slowly come down. What effect might this have on the world? We’ll have to wait and watch.

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