When will we reach peak babies? In what year will the most children be born? I bet last night a shiny pint that we will reach peak babies in the next three years. That the most babies ever born will be in a year before 2015.
Now I accept that we could never actually know how many children will be born in the future. The bet will end when I present enough evidence to convince those I am betting with rather than with a proof. Demographics is regarded as one of the most predictable of social sciences but some possible future invention could drastically increase the number of babies. We could have brave new world style artificial wombs of some such that vastly increases the birth rate for example.
Hans Rosling the statitician tweeted recently.
I looked up the UN data on this here. In detailed indicators look in births and in select country look in world. The highest birth number in the world was 1985-1990
Period Births per year
1950-1955 97 769
1955-1960 102 894
1960-1965 110 280
1965-1970 118 200
1970-1975 121 715
1975-1980 120 676
1980-1985 129 088
1985-1990 137 207
1990-1995 134 960
1995-2000 132 473
2000-2005 131 644
2005-2010 134 072
2010-2015 135 775
2015-2020 135 396
2020-2025 133 800
2025-2030 132 452
2030-2035 131 991
2035-2040 132 099
2040-2045 131 926
2045-2050 131 127
2050-2055 129 904
2055-2060 128 785
2060-2065 127 998
2065-2070 127 402
2070-2075 126 725
2075-2080 125 823
2080-2085 124 775
2085-2090 123 753
2090-2095 122 837
2095-2100 121 992
Now it could all of a sudden rise up and any prediction for the future is unlikely to be as accurate as historical estimates. Still I think I win the bet.
This does not mean that population will drop. As we are living longer world population is still expected to grow. But it does mean we can say that Malthus was wrong. Human numbers will not grow exponentially barring some disaster.
2 comments:
Re the title: the correct demographical term is Peak A-Boo.
> But it does mean we can say that Malthus was wrong. Human numbers will not grow exponentially barring some disaster.
Not to be a stickler, but Malthus' prediction was right, he just got the time wrong: it perfectly described the period up until his writings.
Before Malthus' time, human population growth was bounded by agricultural technology. That is, most people were on the verge of starvation, and when a technological improvement came along that increased farm yields, the human population would increase exponential until the new technology was "eaten up".
This stopped with the industrial revolution, where, over the past 250 years, technology has been increasing faster than our ability to eat.
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