Baby Bust! After 200 years of exponential population growth, and just four decades after overpopulation doomsaying began filling the bestseller lists, the First World is suddenly gripped with underpopulation hysteria. The governments of the developed world have always maintained an interest in birthrates and procreation, but the reasons why are changing, and the ensuing demographic debates about gender, race and culture are "ideologically fraught and scientifically questionable."
posted by amyms on Jun 16, 2008 - 120 comments

Animated population pyramids project a steady increase in the median age. England and Wales. United States. Canada. China. Japan. "The number of older persons has tripled over the last 50 years; it will more than triple again over the next 50 years." [pdf] There will be a shortage of workers to support the retired and disabled. The looming crisis has been predicted for years. Proposed solutions include robots and immigration. [previously, previously]
posted by desjardins on Aug 29, 2007 - 39 comments

Miracles You’ll See In The Next Fifty Years (Feb, 1950)
Some more up-to-date predictions: science, invention, space travel, colonisation, immortality, water shortage, flooding, nanotech, techno-apocalypse, extinction, mental health, smart machines, robots, mind uploading, AI, Asia, economics, demographics, goverance, cities. What is your prediction?
posted by MetaMonkey on Oct 5, 2006 - 54 comments

The Empty Cradle. Our everyday personal experiences with traffic, sprawl and other irritants of modern life tell us there are too many people in the world and the problem is getting worse. However in truth world population growth peaked 40 years ago in 1963 and has been trending downward since. Demographers predict that absolute human population will peak at 9 billion by 2070 and then contract. Long before then, many nations will shrink in absolute size and the average age of the world's citizens will shoot up dramatically, including the fastest aging part of the world: developing countries, where for example Iraq is aging 2.5 times faster than the USA and Mexico 5 times as fast. Having averted the danger of overpopulation, the world now faces the opposite problem: an aging and declining population.
posted by stbalbach on Jun 6, 2004 - 28 comments

Half a billion Americans? The Economist crunches census data from both sides of the Atlantic and figures that the US will hit the 500 million mark sometime in the next few decades, surpassing the combined population of even the expanded EU. In typical style, the Economist looks at the economic and political reprecussions of this, but skips another interesting question: how will a doubling of the population change America itself? will it make the US more environmentally friendly? reduce urban sprawl? will the shifting population balance change the culture itself?
posted by costas on Aug 23, 2002 - 48 comments

There sure are a lot of us. Not to mention that there have been a lot of us. You might be surprised how many. We all know about the increasing world population, but it's interesting to compare the total, current, and past numbers; seeing 'em tick by like that reinforces it in a way that static numbers can't. My, how we've grown.
posted by e^2 on Oct 21, 2001 - 10 comments

U.S. population up 13% from 1990 to 281 million. Power shifts South in the House. Yikes!
posted by quirked on Dec 28, 2000 - 15 comments