Overview

Ours is a world of hope and possibility, a world where the human family is larger than ever before. It is a world in which we are collectively living longer and, on balance, enjoying better health, more rights and broader choices than at any other point in human history. Ours is also a world of anxieties: the tensions of everyday life are rapidly accumulating amid economic uncertainty, the existential question of climate change, the still-rising toll of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing ravages of conflict. In November 2022, the United Nations announced that the human population had surpassed 8 billion people, and also that two thirds of people were living in places where fertility rates had fallen below the so-called “replacement level” of 2.1 births per woman. These trends offer a nuanced look at demographic transition — the shift from higher to lower mortality and fertility — as it unfolds in different countries and contexts. But the subtleties of this story were very often lost. “Too many” people will overwhelm the planet, many pundits proclaimed, even as others warned that “too few” people would lead to civilizational collapse. Every population trend seems to invoke its own vision of catastrophe. Too many young people? Destabilizing. Too many old people? A burden. Too many migrants? A threat. The State of World Population report is produced by a panel of external advisers, researchers and writers, who work alongside UNFPA technical staff and editors, bringing the insights of leading independent experts together on issues related to the UNFPA mandate. This report explores how people — the general public, policymakers, academics and others — understand current population trends, and how those views can impact sexual and reproductive health and rights.