Global population to cross 9 billion by 2050: UN

United Nations, Mar 14 (UNI) The world's human population is on track to surpass 9 billion by 2050, according to the newly released 2006 Revision of the official United Nations population estimates and projections, which also predict the number of elderly persons hitting 1 billion by the same time.

"One of the surprises is that population growth is most concentrated in the 60- plus age group," Hania Zlotnik, the director of the UN Population Division told a news briefing held yesterday in New York to release the report.

"The place where the action is, is the older population. The biggest change will occur in the developing world, and developing countries will have to cope with the situation by investing in both education and care of the elderly,'' she said.

According to the 2006 Revision, the world population is likely to increase by 2.5 billion over the next 43 years, passing from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050. This increase is equivalent to the size of the world population in 1950. The growth in the population will be registerd mainly by the less developed regions, whose population is projected to rise from 5.4 billion in 2007 to 7.9 billion in 2050.

In contrast, the population of the more developed regions is expected to remain largely unchanged at 1.2 billion, and would have declined were it not for the projected net migration from developing countries, which is expected to be an average 2.3 million people annually.

Due to declining fertility increase in lifespan, the population of more and more countries are ageing rapidly. Between 2005 and 2050, half of the increase in the world population will be accounted for by a rise in the population aged 60 years or over, whereas the number of children (persons under age 15) will decline slightly.

Furthermore, in the more developed regions, the population aged 60 or over is expected to double (from 245 million in 2005 to 406 million in 2050), whereas population under tha age of 60 is likely to decline (from 971 million in 2005 to 839 million in 2050).

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