U.N.: Fewer AIDS
deaths would contribute to world population of 9.2
billion in 2050

The world's population will likely reach 9.2 billion in 2050, with nearly three times as many people over the age of 60 as there are today and virtually all growth occurring in the developing world, the U.N. Population Division reported.

Hania Zlotnik, the division's director, said an important change in the new population estimate is a decrease in expected deaths from HIV/AIDS because of the increasing use of antiretroviral drugs and the downward revision of the prevalence of the disease in some countries.

The new report, issued Tuesday, estimates 32 million fewer deaths from AIDS during the 2005-2020 period in the 62 most affected countries compared with the previous U.N. estimate in 2004. This change contributed to the slightly higher world population estimate of 9.2 billion in 2050 in the 2006 estimate, compared with 9.1 billion in the 2004 estimate, the report said.

The new 2006 report also confirms ''the very huge changes'' that the population of the world is about to experience, mostly as a result of the reduction in fertility in developing countries, which means women are having fewer children, Zlotnik said. Fertility has already dipped below replacement levels in 28 developing countries that account for 25% of the world's population, including China, the report said. China's average birth rate during 2005-2010 is estimated at 1.73 children per woman.

According to the 2006 estimate, world population will likely increase by 2.5 billion people over the next 43 years from the current 6.7 billion--a rise equivalent to the world's population in 1950.

If fertility levels are slightly higher than projected, global population will reach 10.8 billion in 2050, and if they are slightly lower, it will hit 7.8 billion, the report said.

The growing population will be absorbed mainly in less developed countries, whose collective population is projected to rise from 5.4 billion in 2007 to 7.9 billion in 2050. The populations of poor countries like Afghanistan, Burundi, Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Niger, East Timor, and Uganda are projected to at least triple by mid century.

By contrast, the population of richer developed countries is expected to remain largely unchanged at 1.2 billion. The report said the figure would be lower without expected migration from poorer to richer countries, averaging 2.3 million people annually. But according to the report, 46 countries are expected to lose population by mid century, including Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, most of the countries in the former Soviet Union, and several small island nations.

Population growth will remain concentrated in populous countries, with half the projected increase from 2005 to 2050 in eight countries listed according to the size of their expected growth: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Congo, Ethiopia, the United States, Bangladesh, and China, the report said.

Half the increase in world population between 2005 and 2050 will be the result of a rise in the over-60 population, while the number of children under age 15 will decline slightly, it said. Today, just 8% of the population in developing countries is over 60 years old, but the report said that by mid century the figure will rise to 20%. Globally, the number of people over the age of 60 is expected to almost triple, from 673 million in 2005 to 2 billion by 2050, it said.

''Population aging is, in fact, the result of a success--the success of humanity in controlling its number,'' Zlotnik said. ''The only thing we can hope is that aging continues and that society can adapt itself to the important social changes ... and have better lives.''

She said most countries in Asia and Latin America have reached the ''relatively beneficial stage'' of having more workers than children or elderly ''and they will remain in that stage for at least two more decades.'' But then their populations will start aging more, which is where Europe and North America are going, she said.

''Europe is the only region at this moment where the number of people aged 60 and over has already surpassed the number of children,'' Zlotnik said. ''We expect that Asia and Latin America will have by 2050 an age distribution that is very similar to the one that Europe has today.''

African countries will have a lot of workers by 2050, but to get there the population will nearly double from 2007 to 2050, Zlotnik said. ''So it is the continent that is going to have to absorb a very high increase, and it will have to absorb it at levels of development that are the very lowest that we have in this world,'' Zlotnik said. (AP)