The US Census has revealed what the world’s population will be come New Year’s Day as the number continues to hover around the eight billion mark with an increase of tens of millions
The population of the Earth is set to reach 8.09 billion come New Year’s Day, although the global birth rate is slowing according to experts.
The huge number is an increase of more than 71 million people – more than everyone in the United Kingdom. The 0.9% increase in 2024 was a slight slowdown from last year, when the world population grew by 75 million people.
In January 2025, 4.2 births and 2.0 deaths were expected worldwide every second, according to the estimates by the US Census Bureau. The United States was expected to have one birth every 9 seconds and one death every 9.4 seconds in January 2025. International migration was expected to add one person to the U.S. population every 23.2 seconds.
According to the latest information by the Office for National Statistics (OFNG) the UK population at mid-year 2023 was estimated to be 68.3 million, an increase of 1.0% since mid-2022. The population grew faster in England and in Wales (both 1.0%) than in Scotland (0.8%) or Northern Ireland (0.5%).
Net international migration was the main contributor to population increase for all four countries of the UK in the year to mid-2023. There were 16,300 more deaths than births across the UK in the year to mid-2023; in England and Northern Ireland there were more births than deaths while Scotland and Wales had more deaths than births.
Earlier this year a doomsday scenario suggested billions of people will disappear from the world’s population by the end of the century. Analysis recently published shows the number of human beings will peak around 2040 at around 8.5billion.
Over the next six decades the number will drastically fall as a result of the world’s poorest countries “breaking free of poverty”. Researchers believe as a result of having access to better education and healthcare, as well as clean energy, the population will dip to around six billion by the time calendars flip to 2100.
Per Espen Stoknes, Earth4All project lead and director of the Centre for Sustainability at Norwegian Business School behind the research, said: “We know rapid economic development in low-income countries has a huge impact on fertility rates.
“Fertility rates fall as girls get access to education and women are economically empowered and have access to better healthcare.”
The scenario, known as the Giant Leap, reads: “The impacts of all such improvements in resource efficiency, taken together, are wide ranging.”
