Population Facts

Population Facts

As you learn about poverty and its causes and symptoms, you will learn many facts about population. In fact, the world population facts are a good picture of how quickly the world is changing and how important and necessary organizations like Compassion are.

One of the most astounding facts about population is the sheer speed at which the world population is growing. Even with the high death rates of those living in poverty, the world population is still expanding at an incredible rate.

While the developed world argues over the ethics of issues like birth control and family planning, the poor continue to experience unprecedented population growth. Population facts show that a vast majority of the world's adolescents live in developing countries.

Compassion’s program educates those living in poverty to help them understand the issues surrounding population growth. When the poor begin to grasp the serious implications of the population facts and the role they play, they begin to understand how they can be a part of changing the facts.

Population Facts
Population Facts Get the facts about population issues in developing countries and how they affect children and their families.
  • World population grew to 7.06 billion in mid-2012.
  • Developing countries accounted for 97 percent of this growth due to high birth rates and young populations.
  • Conversely, in the developed countries the annual number of births barely exceeds deaths because of low birth rates and much older populations. By 2025, it is likely that deaths will exceed births in the developed countries, the first time this will have happened in history.
  • Nearly all future population growth will be in the world's less developed countries, and the poorest of these countries will see the greatest percentage increase. Of these countries, 33 are in sub-Saharan Africa, 14 in Asia, and one in the Caribbean. They are growing at 2.4 percent per year and are projected to reach at least 2 billion by 2050.
  • Europe is likely to be the first region in history to see long-term population decline, largely as a result of low fertility in Eastern Europe and Russia. Europe's population is projected to decrease from 740 million today to 732 million by 2050.
  • Nearly half the world's population—some 3 billion people—is under the age of 25 and entering their childbearing years. The majority of these youth live in developing countries with limited access to family planning and reproductive health services.
  • More than 14 million girls ages 15-19 give birth each year, and they are twice as likely as women 20-34 to die from pregnancy-related causes.
  • While the rate of population growth has slowed in most parts of the world, we still increase by nearly 80 million people every year—the equivalent of adding another U.S. to the world every four years.
  • The number of people on the planet has doubled since 1960, and if current growth rates continue, the world’s population would hit 11 billion by 2050.