Population Matters
Population MattersJul 14, 2023
Report: Global Population Rose 75M in 2023 But Growth Rate Slowed
Image copyright: Anindito Mukherjee/Getty Images News via Getty Images
The Facts
According to the US Census Bureau, the world population will reach 8,019,876,189 on Jan. 1, 2024, which would be about a 1% increase of 75,162,541 people compared to the beginning of 2023. However, the report added that the global population will continue growing at a slower rate.
This means that at the beginning of 2024, there will be an estimated 4.3 births and two deaths every second globally. In the US, it said the population rose at a rate of 0.53%, or 1.7M people, to a total of 335.8M people. While the slowest decade growth rate in the US was 7.3% after the Great Depression, some estimate that at the current rate, the 2020s could become the country's slowest-ever growth rate.
The Spin
Pro-establishment narrative
The global population has rapidly increased for over half a century and will likely continue on this path if we don't take countermeasures. The world has too many people, as shown by a lack of equitably shared resources and the current rate of energy use damaging our ecosystem. A main contributor to this is the marginalization of women and girls who, if they were given reproductive autonomy, would decide to have fewer children. As we give more education, medicine, and wealth to those already on our planet, the data show that the population will decrease to a more sustainable level.
Establishment-critical narrative
Many have rightly praised contraception for its ability to give people control over when and how they build families. However, the movement was quickly taken over by problematic plutocrats like the Rockefeller, Ford, and Bill and Melinda Gates foundations to micromanage populations. The rate of growth has been declining for decades, so we should all question why these global elites continue to push this debunked idea. In fact, underpopulation in countries in nations like Japan is a true demographic challenge that needs to be addressed.
Nerd narrative
There's a 50% chance that the human population will peak at 10B before 2100, according to the Metaculus prediction community.