The Dataset:
Contributor -- Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)
Funder -- Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)
Publisher -- Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)
Publication year -- 2020
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). Global Fertility, Mortality, Migration, and Population Forecasts 2017-2100. Seattle, United States of America: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), 2020.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.6069/MJND-3671
This dataset is comprised of global population data for 194 countries and territories, disaggregated by age group and sex, forecasted for each year through 2100. These forecasts come from the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) 2017 and predictions for deaths, life expectancy, live births, total fertility rate (TFR), and migration. The IHME estimates that the populations of most countries will begin a gradual decline and attributes increased education of women and access to reproductive health services as the primary cause.
What This Program Does:
-- Analyzes the dataset in 24 different ways for global and national populations, centered around population changes, population peaks, age distributions, and how countries compare to one another. See "menu" in the data.py file for specific types of analysis.
What This Program Entails:
-- Uses pandas to parse a dataset with 879,000 rows.
-- Uses 26 functions to query the data in different ways and gain insights.
-- Provides a user-friendly interface for people to explore their demography curiosities.
Some Insights Directly from the Data:
-- The global population will have a net increase of 7 percent between now and 2100.
-- The global population will reach 9 billion in 2038.
-- The global population will peak at 9.7 billion in 2064.
-- 2024 is the year with the greatest percentage of infants and children (16%).
-- 2100 is the year with the greatest percentage of seniors (21%).
-- China is currently at its peak population of 1.4 billion.
-- India will peak at 1.6 billion in 2048.
-- The United States will peak at 364 million in 2062.
-- Between now and 2093, Nigeria will climb from the fifth most populous country to the second.
-- Between 2024 and 2100, 95 countries will experience population growth and 99 countries will experience population decline.
-- By 2100, the population of Niger will be six times greater than it is today, and El Salvador will have declined by 77 percent.
-- The birth cohort who are children (under 10 years old) in the 2020s will be the most populous cohort until the 2070s (when they are in their fifties).
Future Directions:
-- Find the percentage of the global population comprised by the most populous countries
-- Analyze continents and regions
-- Find the percentage of the population that is female or male by country and see if this changes
Analysis by the Data's Researchers:
-- Gradual population decline will result from a global increase in education and access to reproductive health services for women.
-- The global total fertility rate (TFR) will be 1.66 children per woman, below the 2.1 replacement level.
-- The most dramatic TFR change will be in Niger, where the current TFR is 7 and the 2100 TFR will be 1.8.
-- While the global population will be greater in 2100 than it is today, the issues will be the age and geographic distribution of the population.
-- The population of sub-Saharan Africa will triple by 2100 due to lower death rates, but nations that experience population decline will see slowing economic growth due to a declining workforce and a higher burden on health and social support systems of an aging population.
-- The global ratio of non-working adults to workers will increase to 1.16 in 2100, versus 0.8 in 2017.
-- Says IHME professor Stein Emil Vollset, "countries' abilities to generate the wealth needed to fund social support and healthcare for the elderly [will be] reduced."
-- India, Nigeria, China, and the United States will become the dominant powers due to their population size, with immigration bolstering the U.S. population.
-- As population (and population density) grow in sub-Saharan Africa and decline in most other places, immigration will become a greater necessity.
-- Professor Ibrahim Abubakar, the chair of Lancet Migration, stresses that "an equitable change in global migration policy will need the voice of rich and poor countries. Nations would need to cooperate at levels that have eluded us to date to strategically support and fund the development of excess skilled human capital in countries that are a source of migrants."
-- IHME director Dr. Christopher Murray says that the best solution is "social policies supportive of families having their desired number of children."
-- However, he also says that "a very real danger exists that, in the face of declining population, some countries might consider policies that restrict access to reproductive healh services, with potentially devastating consequences."
-- He says "It is imperative that women's freedom and rights are at the top of every government's development agenda."
-- Says Vollset, "responding to population decline is likely to become an overriding policy concern in many nations, but must not compromise efforts to enhance women's reproductive health or progress on women's rights."
-- Dr. Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, says that the study "underlines the importance of protecting and strengthening the sexual and reproductive rights of women."
-- Says Dr. Natalia Kanem, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund, "protecting the reproductive rights and choices of women will be crucial in this demographic transition."
-- See "The Lancet: World population likely to shrink after mid-century, forecasting major shifts in global population and economic power".
Further Analysis:
-- The data's experts stop short of analyzing why it is that the average highly educated women with reproductive freedom would want to have one child instead of two -- persistent inequity in parenting responsibilities between fathers and mothers, a societal norm of mothers having to compromise their careers while fathers do not, and how to make this change. While they mention a need for new "social policies", they do not elaborate on what the problem is or its solution.
-- Also not included are the relationship between reproductive rights and environmental sustainability, AI reducing the need for human workers, or the possibilities of reforming capitalism, potentially under the direction of increasing numbers of female government officials, CEOs, investors, lobbyists, and campaign donors.
-- For an environmental analysis, see the Scientific American article "Population Decline Will Change the World for the Better" by Stephanie Feldstein.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/population-decline-will-change-the-world-for-the-better/