The planet reached 8 billion inhabitants, four times more than there were almost a century ago. How far will the world population go? We invite you to learn the strangest facts about the people who live on Earth. A few weeks ago, a boy named Damián was born in the Dominican Republic. The media announced that with his arrival the planet had reached 8 billion inhabitants. We do not really know why Damien was chosen, since it is impossible to determine exactly when the number was reached. But, in any case, we can already agree that there are more than 8 billion human beings alive. Is this a lot, a little, up to what number will we get? It is impressive to see the evolution of the world population. 12,000 years ago there were about 4 million inhabitants. For a long time, until 1700 AD, the growth rate was very low: the population increased by 0.04% per year. From there there was a demographic explosion. Around the year 1820 it reached 1000 million inhabitants. It doubled after more than a century had passed, and then it took less and less time to add another 1 billion people. In fact, it's only been 11 years since it went from 7 billion to 8 billion. The time of fastest growth is over. But before explaining the changing trends in population growth, let's look at some unexpected facts about us humans. For example, there are as many green-eyed people in the world as there are Bangladeshis. Around one in 1 in 50 has this color, similar to the 166 million inhabitants of Bangladesh, the eighth most populous country on the planet. And what about albinos? It is much less common, and it is estimated that there are around 470,000. So if we pick a random person from around the world, they are more likely to be albino than Icelandic or Vanuatuan. Those of us who have Spanish as our native language are 6% of the world population, some 475 million people. Only Mandarin Chinese surpasses Spanish and is the language with the most native speakers in the world. For every child born with French as their first language, there are another six who will learn Spanish. There have also been some pronounced changes in recent decades. Currently, 57% live in urban areas, considerably more than the 34% that existed in 1960. In addition, 87% are literate, while less than half a century ago it was 76%. That is, only 13% of humans cannot read or write. The illiterate population on the planet is smaller than that of the Chinese. Only between two countries, China and India, do they reach 35% of the population. We anticipate a milestone that will have 2023: for the first time in history, India will surpass China as the most populous country in the world. While we continue with some curiosities, we want to thank one in every 5,500 people who live on this planet. Of course, they are the ones who are subscribed to Un Mundo Inmenso. And if we see it per age? One in four people alive is under the age of 15. In 1950, those who had not reached that age were 35%, which shows the aging of the population. By gender one might assume that the ratio of men to women doesn't offer too many secrets, but something strange is going on. In principle, there is currently a slight advantage for men, who are 50.5% of the total. But this is not replicated with births. For every 100 girls that come into the world, there are between 105 and 106 boys that are born. There is no consensus among scientists about this reality that is verified in all latitudes. Some point out that more pregnancies of girls are lost during the months of gestation, which could explain the phenomenon. Others believe that it is a way that nature has to balance the ratio between the sexes, since men have higher risks of dying both from natural causes and from accidents, acts of violence and wars. Although we are everywhere, humans are far from being the dominant species, at least in number of individuals. For each of us there are three chickens and 17 flies. Although with the ants this goes off scale. According to a recent study, there are 20,000 billions on the entire planet. That is, for every person there are 2.5 million ants. As we said at the beginning, there has been a vertiginous growth of the population during the last 200 years. The reasons that explain it are several. Among the main ones, we can point out that life expectancy is much higher, as we saw in a recent video on our channel. In just two decades we went from 68 to 73 years old. Along the same lines, infant mortality was drastically reduced: in a century, children who did not reach 5 years of age went from 32 to 4%. The technological and health advances of the last two centuries have contributed to people living longer and better. Likewise, if we take a closer look at what has happened in the last decades, we can see that population growth is attenuated. The peak was reached in 1962: in just one year, the growth rate was 2.2%. Currently, it fell to 1%, and this trend is expected to continue. Some even suggest that in the coming decades the world population may begin to decline. The projections differ a bit. The UN, for example, published a report in which it calculates that by the end of this century the ceiling of 11.2 billion inhabitants will be reached. On the other hand, a group of researchers believes that the peak will be reached in 2060 and that it will be 8.8 billion. In other words, we will not add another billion, as we did last month. The reasons given are improvements in the educational level of women and greater access to contraception. It is that the experience obtained throughout the world gave rise to the theory of the demographic transition, through which the developed countries went through. For most of history, birth and death rates were very high, so population growth was low. With improvements in science, public health, agriculture, and technology, child deaths have been reduced and life expectancy has been increased. But, until that time, people continued to have many children. In the next phase, birth rates fall for various reasons, such as access to contraceptive methods, higher educational levels and the incorporation of women into the labor market. Then the birth and death curves are even again, so the total population stabilizes. This process went through all developed countries, and some even went further and have decreasing population rates. The growth of the world population in the following decades, then, will be borne by the countries that have not yet gone through this whole process. In fact, it is calculated that these eight countries will explain half of the population growth until 2050. Without a doubt, this will be a challenge for the planet's food security: many of the people who will be born will do so in countries with high poverty rates. How will the population of the planet evolve? When could it stop? Leave your comment below. And we also tell you again that we published our first book. Un Mundo Inmenso, explanations of inexplicable places, is already available in several countries. So you will have the possibility to get your copy like all these people did. To buy it, link in the description of this video. We also invite you to subscribe to Big World and perhaps become a member. See you in the next video.
