The world is celebrating a population milestone

For those who missed it in yesterday’s email, the global population is expected to cross 8 billion sometime today. Though, like a subway car approaching its next stop, overall growth keeps slowing down.

🚶‍♂️⬅️🦍 Humans, a history: It took over two million years for the human population to reach one billion, and only 207 years more to grow to 7 billion. This population explosion was driven by a reduction in child mortality, as well as improvements in food production, sanitation, and medicine.

• It then took 12 years to tack another bil onto the overall total – but it'll take another fifteen years to reach 9 billion, per the UN. Next stop: Slower Growth Station.

🤔 So, where do we go from here?... The global population is expected to virtually stop growing by the end of this century for the first time in modern history, due in large part to falling fertility rates. Birth rates are dropping in many European countries, as well as in the US and China, according to a Pew Research analysis of UN data.

• More than half of the global population growth between now and 2050 is expected to occur in Africa.
• By 2100, the continent is projected to host five of the world’s 10 largest countries.

+For us visual learners… 👇