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What I find amazing is who will become the third most populous? Looks like Indonesia is fast catching up on the US, but longer term predictions are showing Nige
by billfruit 8y ago
What I find amazing is who will become the third most populous? Looks like Indonesia is fast catching up on the US, but longer term predictions are showing Nigeria moving to the third spot by 2050.
- brohee 8y agoI find the long term projections incredibly dubious, I cannot fathom how Nigeria could support 800M inhabitants, and Niger 200M. and why the fertility would not fall like it did in the rest of the world. Fertility can and often do fall in a ski slope fashion, like it did in e.g. Iran (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=iran+fertility https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=iran+fertility). And indeed, the ski slope is already well started: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=nigeria+fertility https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=nigeria+fertility
- nyolfen 8y agoeven if nigeria’s fertility falls dramatically there’s what’s called demographic momentum[1] which will continue population growth through the rest of the century barring unprecedented migration or catastrophe. 800m is the UN’s middle of the road estimate. the low estimate is around 600m iirc, and the high estimate is over 1b. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_momentum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_momentum
- turndown 8y agoHow does demographic momentum account for the fact that Nigeria cannot support that many people?
- zeropnc 8y agoI mean, look at how many people tiny Bangladesh is supporting.
- SllX 8y agoThat is a good question, and I just checked Wikipedia for modern population estimates. Census counts and non-census estimates tend to be from different years, so the data isn’t perfect, but perfect is the enemy of good and all that, and it is still interesting to look at. 2006 estimate for Nigeria was about 240M, and the 2019 estimate puts them at about 199M, or +59M in 13 years. For Indonesia there is a census count from 2010, ~238M, and a 2016 estimate of 261M, or +23M in 6 years. Now for the United States: the 2010 census put the US at about 309M, and the 2018 estimate at about 327M or +18M over 8 years. I think no matter who takes the #3 spot, the United States will be at #5 and maybe lower in my lifetime.
- heavenlyblue 8y ago>> 2006 estimate for Nigeria was about 240M, and the 2019 estimate puts them at about 199M, or +59M in 13 years. This sentence doesn’t make sense even if you move the numbers around.
- frosted-flakes 8y ago199 is a typo. It should be 299 because 240 + 59 = 299.
- SllX 8y agoIndeed. Sorry about that. It was a typo and I didn’t even notice, pretty sure I’m well outside the edit window as well.
- Meegul 8y agoLooks like they meant 299M rather than 199M.
- flexie 8y agoYes that is truly amazing. That will relegate the US to the 5th place within 20-25 years. And actually, even Pakistan could overtake the US. And if you count the EU as one country, which is increasingly true, then the US could easily be the 7th largest country in 2-3 decades: India China EU Indonesia Nigeria Pakistan US And including the EU, which is still catching up with regards to it’s Eastern and Southern European population, all of those places are poised to get much richer in the coming decades.
- rerx 8y ago> And if you count the EU as one country, which is increasingly true I guess you read different news than I do.
- vorg 8y agoIf the EU is one country, then why not India/Bangladesh, whose combined population overtook China's in 2008 ? Most interesting to me is Japan's projected population of 85 million in 2100, compared to 125 million today.
- nextos 8y agoBecause EU is a political entity, somewhat a very loose federation. India and Bangladesh are not.
- vorg 8y agoCounting French and Germans as a single population group doesn't really make sense, since their languages are far more different than, say, the different flavors of Bengali spoken in Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. And of course the French government's childcare policies are quite different to Germany's. France is also more liberal than Germany in granting citizenship to those of other ethnic groups.
- takee 8y agoDid you know that languages even within different states in India can be vastly more different than the differences between French and German, all with a different script and all? Yes, India is probably more diverse all on it's own, compared to all of EU perhaps.
- devoply 8y agoPopulation growth is a problem, not a competition. Even if you care about the people's rights and humanism, you should be concerned with how much other life each human displaces.
- frosted-flakes 8y agoThe world's economies depend on steady population growth, either through births or immigration.
- A2017U1 8y agoThere's no other possible way for an economy to grow except through that? Population growth is the lazy, unsustainable way to get gdp growth.
- chewz 8y agoNo, they are not. It is not that economy requires growing population, it is the Ponzi scheme of taxing population and diverging govt funds to buying votes. And paying back past debts. This is a man made conundrum not a law of physics.
- devoply 8y agoWe have enough people. We need to utilize them better. Capitalists depend on exploiting population growth to these ends, but it's not in any way necessary. In fact when the black plague killed a large amount of population in Europe the salaries of the poor rose at least 3 times and caused good times for 100 years. The only thing I am advocating is people having fewer children. To point to the empirical historical fact to forward this is not advocacy of anything inhumane.
- ralusek 8y agoEasy there Thanos.
- Skunkleton 8y agoThat's true, and it is a problem that needs to be fixed.