Image Credit: Centre of Population Revised by the Author for clarity.
There are about 8.2 billion people on the planet right now, and that number isn’t slowing down anytime soon. By the 2080s, it could hit a bit over 10 billion, and after that, it might drop just slightly by 2100 .
Not every place is growing the same way. India is going to pass China as the most crowded country, and Africa is seeing a lot of growth in some areas. Europe and East Asia are different, they’re having fewer babies, so their populations are actually getting smaller.
The world is also getting older. People are living longer, fewer kids are being born, and the number of older adults is going to more than double. That means jobs, healthcare, and retirement are going to look a lot different than they do today .
After the middle of the century, overall growth slows down. Most of the new people will be in Africa and parts of Asia, while other countries will have smaller, older populations. How we deal with that will be one of the big challenges of the coming decades.
Reference:
Centre for Population. (2025). 2024 UN World Population Prospects. Australian Government. https://population.gov.au/sites/population.gov.au/files/2025-02/2024-un-world-pop-prospects.pdf
