Our species, Homo sapiens, originated hundreds of thousands of years ago in Africa and now this continent could also be key to the continuity of humanity.
That is what they suggest population studies that anticipate what the world will be like at the end of this century.
To estimate what the world population will be like in 2100 The experts make projections based on a series of factors, mainly the so-called global fertility rate (TFR), which is an average of the number of live children born per woman.
For a population to grow, or at least remain stable, it is necessary, at least, a TFR of 2.1, that is, that the average number of births is 2.1 children per woman.
This figure is known as “replacement fertility” and the idea behind it is simple: since women are almost half the population, if each has at minus two babies, the population will not decrease.
The replacement rate is 2.1 children, and not just 2, because it takes into account that not all babies born reach adulthood and that In addition, there is a slight tendency for more males to be born than females.
According to the statistics of the Population Division of the United Nations Organization, in 1950 women worldwide had an average of 5 children.
This led to the population of the planet tripling in less than a century, and that soon we will be 8 billion.
However, factors such as the creation and dissemination of better methods inception and the professional development of women in many countries, among others, led to the TFR falling to less than half, and in 2022 the women of the world have, on average, 2.4 children.
In many places, the figure is even lower.
“Today, more than half of the world population lives in countries where fertility is below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman, and a large proportion of this population lives in countries with very low and declining fertility levels,” Sabrina Jurán, from the United Nations Population Fund (Unfpa), told BBC Mundo.
This has led experts to project that the world population will peak in a few decades and then start to fall.
10 or 11 billion
Estimates of when the population peak will occur and how many of us there will be vary, but all forecasts agree that humanity will shrink in the next century.
The UN estimates that the world will reach the brink of 11 billion inhabitants for 2022 before beginning to decline.
Other studies conducted in Austria and the United States suggest that the decline will begin earlier, in just half a century, and that the population will not reach billion .
The most recent screening, held in 2020 by the Institute of Metrics and E Health Assessments (IHME) of the University of Washington and published in the scientific journal The Lancet,
indicates that by the end of this century 183 of the 195 countries of the world will have a fertility rate below the levels required to replace their population.
At first glance, this population decline may sound like good news, after all, a less overpopulated world could be a more sustainable one.
But behind the figures lies a very complex reality: with fewer and fewer young people and an increasingly aging population, how will countries keep their economy active?
And in the long run: how will the human race survive if there are fewer and fewer people young people with capacity to procreate?
Africa
It is in this context that many look with interest at the African continent, in particular at the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, as the immense region in the center and south of the continent, which groups 19 countries.
And it is that, contrary to what happens in the rest of the world, in this area, which was the cradle of the human species and the place from which the Earth was originally populated, the population is growing exponentially.
Projections indicate that it would double for 2050, reaching 2. 195 million.
In practice, this means that, in less than thirty years , a quarter of humanity dad could potentially be African.
Africa’s population growth is twice as fast as that of South Asia and almost three times that of Latin America .
And what drives it is a unique feature of this region: in most African countries at least the 40% of citizens have less than 30 years.
This contrasts sharply with the situation in the rest of the world, where the population is aging rapidly.
Jurán highlights the case of Latin America and the Caribbean at this point, which is the region “with the fastest growing population in the world”.
The demographic explosion in Africa has led the UN to conclude that this continent “will play a central role in shaping the size and the distribution of the world population in the coming decades”.
Demographic gap
Some experts warn that this disparity between Africa and the rest of the continents will cause profound changes in the world we know today.
In your recent book “8 billion and counting: how sex, death and migration shape our world”, Jennifer D. Sciubba, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington highlights that in sub-Saharan Africa the TFR is 4,70 children per woman, almost twice the world rate.
Meanwhile, in most of Europe, East and South-East Asia, Oceania, North America and large parts of Latin America the fertility rate is already fell below the replacement level of 2.1.
According to Sciubba, this is cre I walk the largest demographic gap in history.
On the one hand -he points out- there are the countries that have led the world order during the last century , and today they are becoming the oldest societies in history.
On the other hand, there are the poorest nations and least powerful on the planet, where most of the population is young.
The author points out that this division will be a key factor that will drive political, economic and social relations over the next two decades.
One in three
For his part, François Soudan, editor of the French weekly Jeune Afrique, warned about this phenomenon in an article entitled: “The future of humanity will be less white and increasingly African.”
“In 2100, one in three people on the planet will be born in sub-Saharan Africa”, Soudan highlighted in the note published in The Africa Report.
“Nigeria will surpass China in population, becoming the second largest country after India” , he said, citing the work of the IHME.
This study projects that, while nations such as Japan, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Thailand and South Korea will see their population reduced by half by the end of century, the population of sub-Saharan Africa will triple.
The UN projections are even higher, and predict that the African population will reach 4.195 million for 2100, equivalent to almost the 11% of world population .
Migration
For Soudan, the fact that that the average age and n the African continent is “ years, compared to 11 in Europe “, will inevitably lead to a migratory phenomenon.
“The only potential way out for Europe, where retirees will outnumber workers by a factor of two and deaths will outnumber births, is to depend of a constant flow of immigration, with most of the newcomers coming from the only continent that still has a growing population: Africa”, he analyzed.
According to the estimates you cited, to maintain its population at current levels, Europe needs to integrate “between 2 and 3 million immigrants” each year.
The most recent data published by the European Commission show that 1,92 million people immigrated to the countries of the European Union (EU) in 2020, but 960 thousand people emigrated, so the net immigration was 960 thousand.
“Without migration, European population would have been reduced by half a million in 1105, given that 4.2 million children were born and 4.7 million people died in the EU”, clarifies the EU’s own migration data site .
“The reality is that, in pure capitalist logic, European governments should encourage the immigration, if not woo immigrants with cash bonuses”, Soudan points out.
Instead -he says- they create “a myriad of obstacles to immigration”.
According to Sciubba’s book, today only between 2% and 4% of the world population lives outside their country of origin, something that could change drastically in the future.
“Over time , we will have many more people of African descent in many more countries“, predicted Christopher Murray, director of the IHME and co-author of the study published in The Lancet.
Blessing or curse?
But what impact will it have for Africa to be the main fountain of youth in an increasingly aging world?
The experts are divided. Some believe that, take Put correctly, the most neglected continent on the planet could use its advantage over countries with declining populations to boost its economic and geopolitical power.
In this sense, they cite the strong increase in China’s investments in the African continent, with the construction of ports, airports, highways and schools, among other infrastructures.
“The sheer weight of (population) numbers should prompt a reinvention of African countries and their populations,” said Edward Paice, director of the Africa Research Institute and author of the book “Earthquake of Youth: For why African demography should be important to the world”.
In an opinion column published last January in the British newspaper The Guardian, Paice urged that the international community put aside its “representations stereotyped” and “marginalization” of Africa.
The expert anticipated that the demographic importance ica that this continent will have “will affect geopolitics, global trade, technological development, the future of the world’s dominant religions, migration patterns…almost all aspects of life“.
On the other hand, the most pessimistic warn that, without more education, development and above all, cmassive job creation, the exponential growth of the African population could lead to worse levels of unemployment, poverty, conflict and religious radicalization.
One of the most alarmist views is that of Malcolm Potts, a professor at the School of Public Health at the University of California who in 1950 predicted that the area known as the Sahel, the northern part of Sub-Saharan Africa, “could become the first part of planet Earth to experience large-scale famine and growing conflict as a human population increasing exceeds natural resources decreasing“.
For Soudan, in the end the fate of Africa will depend largely on what the leaders of that continent.
“If Africa wants to retain its dynamic, bold and creative citizens -that is, those who are most likely to venture down the risky path of emigration-, and reaping the benefits of its demographic dividend outside the realm of political discourse, then the continent must emphasize education, job training programs and forward-looking job creation policies, as well as better family planning”, he concluded.
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