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population pressures > factfile
The numbers game
The rapid growth of the world population is a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of the world. The population of the world 2,000 years ago was about 300 million. For a very long time, because of high death rates, population did not grow significantly, with periods of growth followed by periods of decline. It took more than 1,600 years for the world population to double to 600 million. ... more
Population policies
A number of countries, especially in Asia, have set targets for reducing the levels of fertility (the average number of children women will have in a lifetime), or for stabilising their population. Some examples from the Asia and Pacific Region, supplied by the UN Population Division, are given below. Comments on these figures are by our own editorial team, ... more
The ageing world
"One in 10 persons is over the age of sixty. By 2050, this proportion will have doubled to one in five." Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General
Human progress in the last century has led to a gradual ageing of the human population. The world's people have never been this healthy or lived this long - and, with some local and regional setbacks, the process looks set to continue. Lower infant and child mortality, better nutrition, education, housing, health care and access to family planning have led to people living longer in nearly all parts of the world. ... more
Growing cities
The world is steadily becoming more urban, as people move to cities and towns in search of employment, educational opportunities and higher standards of living. Some are driven away from land that, for whatever reason, can no longer support them. The share of the global population living in urban areas has increased from one-third in 1960 to 47 per cent (2.8 billion people) in 1999. ... more
The impact of AIDS
At the end of 2006, nearly 40 million people - including 2.3 million children - were living with HIV - 95 per cent of them in the developing world. Over 4 million people - including 530,000 children - had become infected with HIV during the year. ... more
Environmental connections
The cumulative impact of ever more people using more resources is seriously degrading the foundations of life - the air, water, croplands, grasslands, forests and fisheries. In country after country, the natural resource base is shrinking while the pressures upon it - fuelled by increasing consumption and population growth - are increasing rapidly. ... more
Educating girls
Education is a key development variable and a demographic one. It affects decisions about family size and child spacing as well as levels of infant and maternal mortality. It applies to women as well as men, because education, above all, enables people to take change into their own hands and to shape their own destiny. But it is particularly important for girls and women. Among the 900 million illiterate people in the developing world, women still outnumber men by two to one. ... more
International action: Cairo and beyond
In 1994, government delegations from 179 countries and thousands of representatives of civil society met at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt. Participants came to an unprecedented consensus on a 20-year Programme of Action to stabilise the world's population by investing in people and better meeting their health and development needs. This Programme of Action asserts the interdependence of population and development, and calls for the empowerment of women both as a matter of social justice and as the key to improving the quality of life for all people. ... more
Poverty: the desperate facts
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Population, consumption and poverty
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