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The world has passed “peak child”
(ourworldindata.org)
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this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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Did you really believe that any news with we are at the peak is not a prediction?
We do know the number of future parents for the next two decades pretty well, as most of them have been born already. So the only variable is how many children does the average women have. That has been falling every single year for the last 60 years with only a single year seeing a small increase. So this projection is most likely pretty good.
As for why it matters. It means the global workforce will stop its fast growth rate in two decades, increasing competition for workers. It means many countries are aging with all the consequences that brings. It means economic growth is not pushed as much by population growth as has seen before. Clearly there are other factors, but demographics matters a lot.
The population is only 8.2 billion currently. We haven't even passed 9 billion, much less 10.
Are you really surprised that predictions 70 years into the future are not highly accurate? When you look at the 2004 report, then well we are below the high prediction, but above the mid case. So if the current forecast is of similar quality, then we would indeed have been past peak birth for the next 20 years or so.
In the 2004 report the UN got fertility rates in Africa wrong, believing they would drop much faster then they did. They also though AIDS would be worse then it actually was.
Oh and UN predictions go with a peak around 2070-80 or so since the 90s.