Population experts expect a surge in worldwide population growth at least through 2050

October 13, 1999
Web posted at: 11:55 p.m. EDT (0355 GMT)

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NEW YORK (CNN) -- The world's population reached 6 billion this week and about half of them -- young people in their peak reproductive years or close behind -- will determine how quickly the next milestone is reached.

Even with a continuing decline in fertility rates and family size, the sheer numbers guarantee enormous population growth through 2050, U.N. population experts say.

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More than 1 billion young people around the world are age 15 to 24, the most active reproductive years. They'll be followed by another 1.8 billion youngsters now under the age of 15.

Most of these young people live in less developed nations where governments are struggling to provide education, jobs and social services.

"It's the largest generation numerically," says Judith Bruce of the Population Council, which conducts research to find solutions to population-related problems. "It's going to have a very significant place historically because of what is happening to the world demographically."

In the United States and other wealthy lands, for example, youth is seen as a cultural force and a consumer market -- not a population problem. Today's American teen-age girls will, on average, grow up to have fewer than two children in their lifetime.

That's not the case in poorer countries, where 85 percent of the young generation lives and where families are usually larger.

In such countries, many young girls get married and have their first child before the age of 18, says Alex Sanger of Planned Parenthood. "The earlier you start having children, the more you are going to have."

The key question in any country, rich or poor, is not only the size of the youth generation, but whether its members will reproduce at the same rate their parents did. Or, will they choose to have smaller families and slow down the rate of population growth.

The latest evidence shows that in some countries, the slowdown is happening.

Take Mexico, for example. In the 1960s, women there had, on average, seven children. In the 1990s, the birth rate dropped to 2.5 children per woman, a dramatic decline caused by:

• More women entering the work force. By earning more they have more control over their lives.

Educational opportunities for females tend to reduce the number of children they are likely to bear

• More job-seeking families crowding into cities, where children can become a burden to their parents and may be forced to hustle in the streets to survive.

• Education. The longer it lasts, the later the arrival of the first born.

"It is not just a question of delaying the birth, but what happens to fill those years," says Bruce. "It is estimated, for example, that for every additional year of education, the wage rates of girls, of women, rises 10 to 20 percent.

Rising income, and better education, though, will not change one fact.

Even with a declining birth rate, the sheer numbers of today's youth generation mean that the world's population will continue to rise by a projected 50 percent in the next 50 years, bringing it to 9 billion.

Correspondent Garrick Utley contributed to this report.

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