WASHINGTON Population growth will concentrate in the poorest nations as the number of people in the world doubles during the 2st century, new population studies project.

“Most of the large future increase in the world’s population will occur in (less developed countries), including some of the poorest regions of the world sub Saharan Africa and South Asia,” says Thomas W. Merrick, president of the private, non-profit Population Reference Bureau.

A pair of world population reports released by the Bureau Wednesday indicates India is likely to surpass China as the world’s most populous nation by the year 2100, while the United States slips from fourth to seventh place in the world population count.

Currently estimated at about 49 billion, the world’s population is expected to top 10.4 billion by 2100. By contrast there were only about 2.5 billion people living on this planet in 1950,

“While growth rates have declined, (the) annual absolute increase in population continues to mount in many countries and will be large for several decades before tapering off,” Merrick said in the study “World Population in Transition.”

It was published in conjunction with the bureau’s annual world population data sheet, detailing updated population characteristics for the nations of the world.

Merrick said that while future growth will be concentrated in developing countries, it is a concern for all nations,

“For the developing countries it is a question of whether they will evolve into a kind of permanent underclass at the bottom of a two tiered world economy,” Merrick speculated.

“For the more developed countries, now approaching population stabilization … it may be difficult to continue as islands of prosperity in a sea of poverty in a world made smaller by modern transportation and communication,” he added.

This separation, Merrick went on, will be more difficult to maintain, if these imbalances generate waves of immigration.

Of the expected 3.4 billion people to be added to the world’s population by the year 2025, 3.1 billion will be in Africa, Asia and Latin America,

By that date some 83 percent of the people in the world will live in those areas, and only 17 percent in Europe, North America, the Soviet Union, Japan and the Pacific region combined, the reports.

And by 2100 the share in the “more developed” nations could shrink to only 14 percent of the entire world’s people, he anticipates. Currently, 24.4 percent live in the more developed nations,

The 20 most populous nations today are: 1. China, 1.05 billion; 2, India, 785 million; 3. Soviet Union, 280 million; 4, United States, 241 million; 5. Indonesia, 168 million; 6, Brazil, 143 million; 7. Japan, 122 million; 8. Nigeria, 105 million; 9. Bangladesh, 104 million; 10, Pakistan, 102 million; 11. Mexico, 82 million; 12, Vietnam, 62 million; 13, West Germany, 61 million; 14. Philippines, 58 million; 15. Italy, 57 million; 16, United Kingdom, 57 million; 17, France, 55 million; 18. Thailand, 53 million; 19. Turkey, 52 million; 20, Egypt, 51 million.

Expected to be the 20 most populous nations in the year 2100 are: 1. India, 1,63 billion; 2. China, 1.57 billion; 3. Nigeria, 509 million; 4. Soviet Union, 376 million; 5. Indonesia, 356 million; 6. Pakistan, 316 million; 7. United States, 309 million; 8. Bangladesh, 297 million; 9. Brazil, 293 million; 10. ‘Mexico, 195 million; 11. Ethiopia, 173 million, 12, Vietnam, 168 million; 13. Iran, 163 million; 14, Zaire, 139 million; 15. Japan, 128 million; 16. Philippines, 125 million; 17. Tanzania, 120 million; 18. Kenya, 116 million; 19. Burma, 112 million; 20. Egypt, 111 million.

Article extracted from this publication >> April 18, 1986