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European countries are experiencing population decline and the tacit assumption in most analyses is that the decline may have detrimental welfare effects. In this paper we use a survey among the population in the Netherlands to discover whether population decline is always met with fear. A number of results stand out: population size preferences differ by geographic proximity: at a global level the majority of respondents favors a (global) population decline, but closer to home one supports a stationary population. Population decline is clearly not always met with fear: 31 percent would like the population to decline at the national level and they generally perceive decline to be accompanied by immaterial welfare gains (improvement environment) as well as material welfare losses (tax increases, economic stagnation). In addition to these driving forces it appears that the attitude towards immigrants is a very strong determinant at all geographical levels: immigrants seem to be a stronger fear factor than population decline.
In the Cook Islands in 2024, the population decreased by about 2.24 percent compared to the previous year, making it the country with the highest population decline rate in 2024. Of the 20 countries with the highest rate of population decline, the majority are island nations, where emigration rates are high (especially to Australia, New Zealand, and the United States), or they are located in Eastern Europe, which suffers from a combination of high emigration rates and low birth rates.
The world's population first reached one billion people in 1803, and reach eight billion in 2023, and will peak at almost 11 billion by the end of the century. Although it took thousands of years to reach one billion people, it did so at the beginning of a phenomenon known as the demographic transition; from this point onwards, population growth has skyrocketed, and since the 1960s the population has increased by one billion people every 12 to 15 years. The demographic transition sees a sharp drop in mortality due to factors such as vaccination, sanitation, and improved food supply; the population boom that follows is due to increased survival rates among children and higher life expectancy among the general population; and fertility then drops in response to this population growth. Regional differences The demographic transition is a global phenomenon, but it has taken place at different times across the world. The industrialized countries of Europe and North America were the first to go through this process, followed by some states in the Western Pacific. Latin America's population then began growing at the turn of the 20th century, but the most significant period of global population growth occurred as Asia progressed in the late-1900s. As of the early 21st century, almost two thirds of the world's population live in Asia, although this is set to change significantly in the coming decades. Future growth The growth of Africa's population, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, will have the largest impact on global demographics in this century. From 2000 to 2100, it is expected that Africa's population will have increased by a factor of almost five. It overtook Europe in size in the late 1990s, and overtook the Americas a decade later. In contrast to Africa, Europe's population is now in decline, as birth rates are consistently below death rates in many countries, especially in the south and east, resulting in natural population decline. Similarly, the population of the Americas and Asia are expected to go into decline in the second half of this century, and only Oceania's population will still be growing alongside Africa. By 2100, the world's population will have over three billion more than today, with the vast majority of this concentrated in Africa. Demographers predict that climate change is exacerbating many of the challenges that currently hinder progress in Africa, such as political and food instability; if Africa's transition is prolonged, then it may result in further population growth that would place a strain on the region's resources, however, curbing this growth earlier would alleviate some of the pressure created by climate change.
Today, globally, women of childbearing age have an average of approximately 2.2 children over the course of their lifetime. In pre-industrial times, most women could expect to have somewhere between five and ten live births throughout their lifetime; however, the demographic transition then sees fertility rates fall significantly. Looking ahead, it is believed that the global fertility rate will fall below replacement level in the 2050s, which will eventually lead to population decline when life expectancy plateaus. Recent decades Between the 1950s and 1970s, the global fertility rate was roughly five children per woman - this was partly due to the post-WWII baby boom in many countries, on top of already-high rates in less-developed countries. The drop around 1960 can be attributed to China's "Great Leap Forward", where famine and disease in the world's most populous country saw the global fertility rate drop by roughly 0.5 children per woman. Between the 1970s and today, fertility rates fell consistently, although the rate of decline noticeably slowed as the baby boomer generation then began having their own children. Replacement level fertility Replacement level fertility, i.e. the number of children born per woman that a population needs for long-term stability, is approximately 2.1 children per woman. Populations may continue to grow naturally despite below-replacement level fertility, due to reduced mortality and increased life expectancy, however, these will plateau with time and then population decline will occur. It is believed that the global fertility rate will drop below replacement level in the mid-2050s, although improvements in healthcare and living standards will see population growth continue into the 2080s when the global population will then start falling.
The world population surpassed eight billion people in 2022, having doubled from its figure less than 50 years previously. Looking forward, it is projected that the world population will reach nine billion in 2038, and 10 billion in 2060, but it will peak around 10.3 billion in the 2080s before it then goes into decline. Regional variations The global population has seen rapid growth since the early 1800s, due to advances in areas such as food production, healthcare, water safety, education, and infrastructure, however, these changes did not occur at a uniform time or pace across the world. Broadly speaking, the first regions to undergo their demographic transitions were Europe, North America, and Oceania, followed by Latin America and Asia (although Asia's development saw the greatest variation due to its size), while Africa was the last continent to undergo this transformation. Because of these differences, many so-called "advanced" countries are now experiencing population decline, particularly in Europe and East Asia, while the fastest population growth rates are found in Sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, the roughly two billion difference in population between now and the 2080s' peak will be found in Sub-Saharan Africa, which will rise from 1.2 billion to 3.2 billion in this time (although populations in other continents will also fluctuate). Changing projections The United Nations releases their World Population Prospects report every 1-2 years, and this is widely considered the foremost demographic dataset in the world. However, recent years have seen a notable decline in projections when the global population will peak, and at what number. Previous reports in the 2010s had suggested a peak of over 11 billion people, and that population growth would continue into the 2100s, however a sooner and shorter peak is now projected. Reasons for this include a more rapid population decline in East Asia and Europe, particularly China, as well as a prolongued development arc in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Historical chart and dataset showing World population growth rate by year from 1961 to 2023.
In 2022, India overtook China as the world's most populous country and now has almost 1.46 billion people. China now has the second-largest population in the world, still with just over 1.4 billion inhabitants, however, its population went into decline in 2023. Global population As of 2025, the world's population stands at almost 8.2 billion people and is expected to reach around 10.3 billion people in the 2080s, when it will then go into decline. Due to improved healthcare, sanitation, and general living conditions, the global population continues to increase; mortality rates (particularly among infants and children) are decreasing and the median age of the world population has steadily increased for decades. As for the average life expectancy in industrial and developing countries, the gap has narrowed significantly since the mid-20th century. Asia is the most populous continent on Earth; 11 of the 20 largest countries are located there. It leads the ranking of the global population by continent by far, reporting four times as many inhabitants as Africa. The Demographic Transition The population explosion over the past two centuries is part of a phenomenon known as the demographic transition. Simply put, this transition results from a drastic reduction in mortality, which then leads to a reduction in fertility, and increase in life expectancy; this interim period where death rates are low and birth rates are high is where this population explosion occurs, and population growth can remain high as the population ages. In today's most-developed countries, the transition generally began with industrialization in the 1800s, and growth has now stabilized as birth and mortality rates have re-balanced. Across less-developed countries, the stage of this transition varies; for example, China is at a later stage than India, which accounts for the change in which country is more populous - understanding the demographic transition can help understand the reason why China's population is now going into decline. The least-developed region is Sub-Saharan Africa, where fertility rates remain close to pre-industrial levels in some countries. As these countries transition, they will undergo significant rates of population growth
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Environmental degradation is proportional to the number of humans. Despite a general decrease in birth rates, the global population continues to grow. The tendencies of decrease are insufficient to achieve sustainability within a realistic time frame. High fertility is used for geopolitical advance and should be counteracted. In countries with insufficiently observed human rights, de facto reproductive coercion is used for birth rate elevation. International conflicts are motives to boost fertility, since the military needs young people. Birth control has been rejected in some countries on the grounds of presumed national interests, such as stronger defences and sovereignty, which can be bolstered by demographic growth. Smouldering international conflicts contribute to birth rate elevation in some regions. Of note, durable peace is needed to accomplish large environment protection initiatives, in particular, nuclear, thermonuclear, hydroelectric power plants, and other energy sources instead of oil and coal. Notwithstanding the prospects of cheaper and cleaner energy, there is currently no solution to a decline in regional and global populations. It seems to be inevitable that the global human population will become reduced during the present century. How this happens may be to some extent within our control. It will not remain so indefinitely.
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In 2021, there were 11.6 births per 1,000 people in Northern Ireland, compared with eleven in the previous year. Between 2000 and 2008, Northern Ireland's birth rate increased from 12.8 to 14.4 but started to decline gradually until 2012 when it dropped from 13.9 to 13.3 in just one year. During this provided time period, the birth rate in Northern Ireland was highest in 1971, when it was 20.6 and was at its lowest in 2020 when there were just eleven births per 1,000 people. Falling birth rates in the UK For the United Kingdom as a whole, the birth rate fell to 10.2 births per 1,000 people in 2020, before a slight uptick to 10.4 in 2021. After a postwar peak of 18.8 births per 1,000 people in 1964, the UK birth rate fell sharply to just 11.7 by 1977. Between 1977 and 2012 the birth rate fluctuated between 11.3 and 13.9, but declined in every year between 2012 and 2020. In 2021, the UK's fertility rate (the number of births per women) fell to just 1.53, compared with 2.95 in 1964. Since 1973, the UK has fallen below the minimum replacement level fertility rate of 2.1, and without immigration would likely see its population decline in the long term. Global demographic trends The considerable decline in the UK's fertility rate in recent decades is not an isolated phenomenon. As of 2024, Africa was, at 4.12, the only continent to have a fertility rate higher than the global average of 2.31. Several countries, mainly in East Asia and Europe, have far lower fertility rates than the UK or the global average, however. South Korea provides the most dramatic example of this trend, with its fertility rate falling from 6.33 in 1960 to just 1.11 by 2020. By the 2080s, it is expected that, as Africa's fertility rate converges with the rest of the world, the global population will peak at around 10.4 billion and start to decline.
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The USA: Percent of world population: The latest value from 2023 is 4.2 percent, a decline from 4.22 percent in 2022. In comparison, the world average is 0.51 percent, based on data from 196 countries. Historically, the average for the USA from 1960 to 2023 is 4.93 percent. The minimum value, 4.2 percent, was reached in 2023 while the maximum of 6.02 percent was recorded in 1961.
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Context
The dataset tabulates the White Earth population over the last 20 plus years. It lists the population for each year, along with the year on year change in population, as well as the change in percentage terms for each year. The dataset can be utilized to understand the population change of White Earth across the last two decades. For example, using this dataset, we can identify if the population is declining or increasing. If there is a change, when the population peaked, or if it is still growing and has not reached its peak. We can also compare the trend with the overall trend of United States population over the same period of time.
Key observations
In 2023, the population of White Earth was 93, a 0% decrease year-by-year from 2022. Previously, in 2022, White Earth population was 93, a decline of 4.12% compared to a population of 97 in 2021. Over the last 20 plus years, between 2000 and 2023, population of White Earth increased by 28. In this period, the peak population was 99 in the year 2020. The numbers suggest that the population has already reached its peak and is showing a trend of decline. Source: U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP).
When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP).
Data Coverage:
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Margin of Error
Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.
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If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.
Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.
This dataset is a part of the main dataset for White Earth Population by Year. You can refer the same here
Many places around the world have experienced population growth in the past decade and even population decline due to the COVID pandemic. According to worldometer’s current statistics the global population continues to thrive reaching a little over 8 billion and still growing. Although, Kazakhstan only ranks 64 we can see that they have a decent 1.21 percent yearly change with the net change being about 225,000 to the total of 19 million. When we look at their 2021 stats from Our World in Data for birth rates and death rates per 1,000 people, we can see that they are still a growing population as the birth rate (21.54) is double the death rate (10.23). Birthrates measure the number of births in a population by using a percentage or a ratio per 1,000 people and Death rates measure using the same methods (Marston, Knox, Liverman, Del Casino, Robbins, 2019, p. 39). Not only does this contribute to the growing population, but groups of people who weren’t living there whose ethnicity is from Kazakhstan are moving back into their home country. Ethnicity is defined as a “state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition; socially created system of rules about who belongs to a particular group” (Marston, Knox, Liverman, Del Casino, Robbins, 2019, p. 36). Population growth isn’t necessarily a bad thing as long as it is sustainable, but for Kazakhstan population growth can be dangerous as generally they have been struggling with basic economic rights and are being directed to the northern region.
Rapid population growth in developing countries in the middle of the 20th century led to fears of a population explosion and motivated the inception of what effectively became a global population-control program. The initiative, propelled in its beginnings by intellectual elites in the United States, Sweden, and some developing countries, mobilized resources to enact policies aimed at reducing fertility by widening contraception provision and changing family-size norms. In the following five decades, fertility rates fell dramatically, with a majority of countries converging to a fertility rate just above two children per woman, despite large cross-country differences in economic variables such as GDP per capita, education levels, urbanization, and female labor force participation. The fast decline in fertility rates in developing economies stands in sharp contrast with the gradual decline experienced earlier by more mature economies. In this paper, we argue that population-control policies likely played a central role in the global decline in fertility rates in recent decades and can explain some patterns of that fertility decline that are not well accounted for by other socioeconomic factors.
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The relative effect of top-down versus bottom-up forces in regulating and limiting wildlife populations is an important theme in ecology. Untangling these effects is critical for a basic understanding of trophic dynamics and effective management. We examined the drivers of moose (Alces alces) population growth by integrating two independent sources of observations within a hierarchical Bayesian population model. This analysis used one of the largest existing spatiotemporal datasets on ungulate population dynamics globally. We documented a 20% population decline over the period examined. Moose population growth was negatively density-dependent. Although the mechanisms producing density-dependent suppression of population growth could not be determined, the relatively low densities at which moose populations were documented suggests it could be due primarily to density-dependent predation. Predation primarily limited population growth, except at low density, where it was regulating. Harvest appeared to be largely additive and contributed to population declines. Our results, highlight how population dynamics are context dependent and vary strongly across gradients in climate, forest type, and predator abundance. These results help clarify long-standing questions in population ecology and highlight the complex relationships between natural and human-caused mortality in driving ungulate population dynamics.
This statistic shows the ten countries with the largest decline in the size of the rural population between 2018 and 2015. Based on forecasted population figures, the rural population of China is projected to be around *** million less in 2050 than it was in 2018.
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Historical chart and dataset showing total population for Russia by year from 1950 to 2025.
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The Asiatic wild dog or dhole (Cuon alpinus) is a highly elusive, monophyletic, forest dwelling, social canid distributed across south and Southeast Asia. Severe pressures from habitat loss, prey depletion, disease, human persecution and interspecific competition resulted in global population decline in dholes. Despite a declining population trend, detailed information on population size, ecology, demography and genetics is lacking. Generating reliable information at landscape level for dholes is challenging due to their secretive behaviour and monomorphic physical features. Recent advances in non-invasive DNA-based tools can be used to monitor populations and individuals across large landscapes. In this paper, we describe standardization and validation of faecal DNA-based methods for individual identification of dholes. We tested this method on 249 field-collected dhole faeces from five protected areas of the central Indian landscape in the state of Maharashtra, India. Results We tested a total of 18 cross-species markers and developed a panel of 12 markers for unambiguous individual identification of dholes. This marker panel identified 101 unique individuals from faecal samples collected across our pilot field study area. These loci showed varied level of amplification success (57-88%), polymorphism (3-9 alleles), heterozygosity (0.23-0.63) and produced a cumulative misidentification rate or PID(unbiased) and PID(sibs) value of 4.7x10-10 and 1.5x10-4, respectively, indicating a high statistical power in individual discrimination from poor quality samples. Conclusion Our results demonstrated that the selected panel of 12 microsatellite loci can conclusively identify dholes from poor quality, non-invasive biological samples and help in exploring various population parameters. This genetic approach would be useful in dhole population estimation across its range and will help in assessing population trends and other genetic parameters for this elusive, social carnivore.
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Bumble bees (Bombus) are vitally important pollinators of wild plants and agricultural crops worldwide. Fragmentary observations, however, have suggested population declines in several North American species. Despite rising concern over these observations in the United States, highlighted in a recent National Academy of Sciences report, a national assessment of the geographic scope and possible causal factors of bumble bee decline is lacking. Here, we report results of a 3-y interdisciplinary study of changing distributions, population genetic structure, and levels of pathogen infection in bumble bee populations across the United States. We compare current and historical distributions of eight species, compiling a database of >73,000 museum records for comparison with data from intensive nationwide surveys of >16,000 specimens. We show that the relative abundances of four species have declined by up to 96% and that their surveyed geographic ranges have contracted by 23–87%, some within the last 20 y. We also show that declining populations have significantly higher infection levels of the microsporidian pathogen Nosema bombi and lower genetic diversity compared with co-occurring populations of the stable (nondeclining) species. Higher pathogen prevalence and reduced genetic diversity are, thus, realistic predictors of these alarming patterns of decline in North America, although cause and effect remain uncertain. Bumble bees (Bombus) are integral wild pollinators within native plant communities throughout temperate ecosystems, and recent domestication has boosted their economic importance in crop pollination to a level surpassed only by the honey bee. Their robust size, long tongues, and buzz-pollination behavior (high-frequency buzzing to release pollen from flowers) significantly increase the efficiency of pollen transfer in multibillion dollar crops such as tomatoes and berries. Disturbing reports of bumble bee population declines in Europe have recently spilled over into North America, fueling environmental and economic concerns of global decline. However, the evidence for large-scale range reductions across North America is lacking. Many reports of decline are unpublished, and the few published studies are limited to independent local surveys in northern California/southern Oregon, Ontario, Canada, and Illinois. Furthermore, causal factors leading to the alleged decline of bumble bee populations in North America remain speculative. One compelling but untested hypothesis for the cause of decline in the United States entails the spread of a putatively introduced pathogen, Nosema bombi, which is an obligate intracellular microsporidian parasite found commonly in bumble bees throughout Europe but largely unstudied in North America. Pathogenic effects of N. bombi may vary depending on the host species and reproductive caste and include reductions in colony growth and individual life span and fitness. Population genetic factors could also play a role in Bombus population decline. For instance, small effective population sizes and reduced gene flow among fragmented habitats can result in losses of genetic diversity with negative consequences, and the detrimental impacts of these genetic factors can be especially intensified in bees. Population genetic studies of Bombus are rare worldwide. A single study in the United States identified lower genetic diversity and elevated genetic differentiation (FST) among Illinois populations of the putatively declining B. pensylvanicus relative to those of a codistributed stable species. Similar patterns have been observed in comparative studies of some European species, but most investigations have been geographically restricted and based on limited sampling within and among populations. Although the investigations to date have provided important information on the increasing rarity of some bumble bee species in local populations, the different survey protocols and limited geographic scope of these studies cannot fully capture the general patterns necessary to evaluate the underlying processes or overall gravity of declines. Furthermore, valid tests of the N. bombi hypothesis and its risk to populations across North America call for data on its geographic distribution and infection prevalence among species. Likewise, testing the general importance of population genetic factors in bumble bee decline requires genetic comparisons derived from sampling of multiple stable and declining populations on a large geographic scale. From such range-wide comparisons, we provide incontrovertible evidence that multiple Bombus species have experienced sharp population declines at the national level. We also show that declining populations are associated with both high N. bombi infection levels and low genetic diversity. This data was used in the paper "Patterns of widespread decline in North American bumble bees" published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of United States of America. For more information about this dataset contact: Sydney A. Cameron: scameron@life.illinois.edu James Strange: James.Strange@ars.usda.gov Resources in this dataset:Resource Title: Data from: Patterns of Widespread Decline in North American Bumble Bees (Data Dictionary). File Name: meta.xmlResource Description: This is an XML data dictionary for Data from: Patterns of Widespread Decline in North American Bumble Bees.Resource Title: Patterns of Widespread Decline in North American Bumble Bees (DWC Archive). File Name: occurrence.csvResource Description: File modified to remove fields with no recorded values.Resource Title: Patterns of Widespread Decline in North American Bumble Bees (DWC Archive). File Name: dwca-usda-ars-patternsofwidespreaddecline-bumblebees-v1.1.zipResource Description: Data from: Patterns of Widespread Decline in North American Bumble Bees -- this is a Darwin Core Archive file. The Darwin Core Archive is a zip file that contains three documents.
The occurrence data is stored in the occurrence.txt file. The metadata that describes the columns of this document is called meta.xml. This document is also the data dictionary for this dataset. The metadata that describes the dataset, including author and contact information for this dataset is called eml.xml.
Find the data files at https://bison.usgs.gov/ipt/resource?r=usda-ars-patternsofwidespreaddecline-bumblebees
The number of people without access to electricity worldwide has dropped by more than half between 2000 and 2024, amounting to 737 million in the latter year. The biggest decline was recorded in the developing Asian region, where the population without access to electricity declined by nearly 90 percent in the period. Meanwhile, this value increased in Sub-Saharan Africa, which accounted for 80 percent of the global total in 2024.
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European countries are experiencing population decline and the tacit assumption in most analyses is that the decline may have detrimental welfare effects. In this paper we use a survey among the population in the Netherlands to discover whether population decline is always met with fear. A number of results stand out: population size preferences differ by geographic proximity: at a global level the majority of respondents favors a (global) population decline, but closer to home one supports a stationary population. Population decline is clearly not always met with fear: 31 percent would like the population to decline at the national level and they generally perceive decline to be accompanied by immaterial welfare gains (improvement environment) as well as material welfare losses (tax increases, economic stagnation). In addition to these driving forces it appears that the attitude towards immigrants is a very strong determinant at all geographical levels: immigrants seem to be a stronger fear factor than population decline.