According to a projection by the United Nations (UN) issued on November 15th, the world has reached the milestone of eight billion inhabitants. The data was published in the World Population Prospects 2022 report, which presents population estimates for 237 countries or regions based on historical and demographic analyses.

Population growth is a concern for some experts because it worsens factors such as inequality, especially in developing countries. Liu Zhenmin, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, warned on the organization’s website that rapid population growth makes it more di_ cult to eradicate poverty, fi ght hunger and malnutrition and increase the coverage of health and education systems. The document also states that “The necessity of educating growing numbers of children and young people, for example, draws resources away from efforts to improve the quality of education”.

According to the UN, however, it is not necessary that people feel a sense of “population alarmism”. Despite population growth, the entity says that the pace of this increase is slowing down. In 2020, for example, the growth rate was below 1% per year for the first time since 1950. Furthermore, in Latin America, the number of people of working age (i.e. able to work) is rising. This might result in an opportunity to increase economic growth per capita (per person).

Most Populous Country in the World

Another of the report’s projections is that India will surpass China in number of inhabitants, thus becoming the most populous country in the world in 2023. According to the study, in 2022 more than 1.4 billion people lived in each of these two countries.

Sources: Agência Brasil, BBC and UM

JOCA’S FIRST COVER

Did you know that the fact that there are seven billion people in the world was on the cover of Joca’s first issue? Eleven years later, the Earth has reached a new milestone. Use the QR code to access the newspaper’s first edition.

Questions

1) Which of these is not a population growth issue?

a) Increase in inequality

b) Difficulty in fighting hunger

c) Difficulty in eradicating poverty

d) Increase in the number of animals

2) What do you think can be done to solve the problems caused by population increase?

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