Andras Smith,

From what I know the world population growth is NOT declining and will continue to grow as long as there is sufficient food and associated resources available to prevent it from declining or in some cases crashing e.g. Easter Island and Rwanda.

Are you confusing population growth with rate of population growth?

May I ask what you understand to be the factor that lowers the fertility rate in modern/advanced industrialised societies?

Not sure of the relevance of your opinion Mr Opinion?

Fertility rates started declining decades ago, for now we are mostly seeing the aggregation of population due to ageing and longevity, while numbers of young remain about 2 billion (according to Prof. Hans Rosling of Gapminder), before the peak then drop....

Across both the developed and less developed world, research has shown that fertility rates decline due to improved health care, education, economic opportunities and empowerment for women.

Andras Smith,

So you are telling us that total world population is declining. Is that what you are telling us? If you look at the World Population Clock it is telling us that total population is rising NOT falling.

You obviously do not understand what the factor is that causes a lowering of the fertility rate in modern industrial societies. You seem to think that it just happens. Can you describe for us exactly how it functions?

Mr Opinion, both Andras Smith and I are saying that the global increase in human beings is declining, not the actual number of people. This will happen only when female fertility rate drops below 2.1 or 2.2 children per woman, which will happen in about 2050.

Misopinionated,

My god, what an idiot.

Of course, world population is still increasing. But the rate of population growth is declining. The number of births in China will stabilise then decline this decade, and something similar will happen in India in another generation or so. Domestic population growth in Europe, Japan, north America, perhaps Australia and NZ, is stagnant - our population grows only with immigration. Even in Africa, the rate of population growth is decreasing.

So world population will continue to grow, but more slowly, until around 2100, then very slowly decline.

In fact, populations are growing not just because of more births, but because people are living longer, i.e. not dying so early, so they are still counted in the world's population for longer.

Don't they teach you anything at TAFE ?

Joe

LOUDmouth,

What are you talking about? I just said above that world population is rising NOT the opposite. Bernie Masters and Andras Smith are the ones saying it is falling.

It's interesting to see that none of you three know how a modernising society gives rise to a lowering of the fertility rate. Well actually in LOUDmouth's case it shouldn't surprise me at all.