ABSTRACT
Over the past two decades, roughly two billion people were added to the world’s population. No other period in human history has seen such an increase in numbers, and the coming decades will continue to see significant world population growth. Population size will most likely increase by at least another two billion to over eight billion people. However, during the second half of the 21st century, the world is likely to experience no further population growth and possibly even see the beginning of a decline. Sometime before 2100, the great centuries-long expansion of the world’s population will have come to an end. This chapter presents, explains, and draws out a few of the implications of this striking new outlook.
