Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to complete the historical picture set forth in chapter 10 by discussing the principal characteristics of populations as they are today, all over the world. These characteristics represent, too, the starting point for the projected prospects for the future with which chapter 14 will deal. An analysis of the world population situation at the present time is also a useful precursor to the matters to be referred to in chapters 12 and 13, namely the economic implications of and political influences upon population trends.

The present chapter starts by showing some data relating to the world as a whole; thereafter it enters more into the detail of the principal component populations. Subsequently it gives some idea of the pictures presented, in a demographic sense, by some of the most recent censuses, indicating how populations are distributed with regard to such elements as age, area of residence, and family structure, and how far the distributions vary. The data will be drawn in the main from the statistics shown in the UN Demographic Year Book, which are a very comprehensive collection, and useful in spite of their imperfections.

World population today

Table 11.1 gives some information about recent world population growth, and illustrates the well-known features that:

1. (1) the numbers of people are large and increasing;

2. (2) the rate of growth has increased but is tending to level off;

3. (3) the growth rate is higher in some areas than in others.