What demographers call the Total Fertility Rate is the average number of live births per woman over her lifetime. In the long run, a population is said to be stable if the TFR is at the replacement rate, which is a little above 2.3 for the world as a whole, and somewhat lower, at 2.1, for developed countries, reflecting their lower infant-mortality rates.
The TFR for most developed countries now stands well below replacement levels. The OECD average is at around 1.74, but some countries, including Germany and Japan, produce less than 1.4 children per woman. However, the biggest TFR declines in recent years have been in developing countries. The TFR in China and India was 6.1 and 5.9, respectively, in 1950. It now stands at 1.8 in China, owing to the authorities’ aggressive one-child policy, while rapid urbanization and changing social attitudes have brought down India’s TFR to 2.6.
…. it is likely that world population will peak at nine billion in the 2050’s, a half-century sooner than generally anticipated, followed a sharp decline. One could argue that this is a good thing, in view of the planet’s limited carrying capacity. But, when demographic dynamics turn, the world will have to confront a different set of problems.
via The End of Population Growth – Sanjeev Sanyal – Project Syndicate.
the problems we face with a population of 7 billion are bad enough
growth growth growth in it’s current format is unsustainable/and has catastrophic
implications
other species and the environment are as important…. if not more important than our burgeoning human population(we are like a plague of rats)
we the clever ones?????????…I don’t think so
Even if the world population grows at only 1.5% per year, in 750 years there will not be a single square metre of land available on Earth to stand upon and no land to grow food.
The solution for ever increasing population becomes more Orwellian as the decades pass.
The ramifications for humans exceed those of the fallen empires of past millenia.
Guy la China. TFR is not a population growth rate. Read the article, Numbnuts.