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Article: Trends halting population growth: low fertility rates will halt population growth worldwide.(Demography)
- Article from:
- The Futurist
- Article date:
- September 1, 2004
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 World Future Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Demographers now generally agree that the twenty-first century is likely to see the end of world population growth. The cause: significant fertility declines around the world that are unlikely to stop at the replacement level of around 2.1 children per woman.
But before growth levels off and possibly decreases, at least 2 bilion will be added to total world population. Women around the world now have fertility levels well below those needed to reproduce their populations, say Wolfgang Lutz, Warren C. Sanderson, and Sergei Scherbov of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. "Spain and Italy used to be relatively high fertility countries," they ...