South Korea’s fertility rate fell below the level needed to sustain a population in the mid-1980s – and it never recovered. It is now below one child per woman during her reproductive years.
Guineans living in Ivory Coast wait for their turn during a census on March 26, 2010 in Adjame, a popular district in Abidjan.
SIA Kambou/AFP via Getty images
There’s no simple “yes” or “no” answer to whether we should produce more children when Earth is in such dire straits.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford talks to the media on a construction site in Brampton, Ont., in May 2022. Later in the year, the Ford government justified its adoption of sweeping housing legislation and the opening of parts of the Greater Toronto Area Greenbelt for development, stating that it was needed to address “the housing supply crisis.”
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
Evidence suggests that Ontario neither had a shortage of pre-authorized housing starts to accommodate its growing population, nor did it have a shortage of designated land to build such homes.
The human population has doubled in 48 years, and worsening climate change has left the world facing serious health risks, from infectious diseases to hunger and heat stress.
Population growth fuels knowledge, leading to new technology and energy use, fueling more population growth.
Robert Essel/The Image Bank via Getty Images
The UN estimates the global population will pass 8 billion people on Nov. 15, 2022. From the Stone Age to today, here’s how things spiraled out of control.
Nigeria’s economy needs to diversify away from oil.
Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images
Matthew E. Kahn, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
A 1972 report warned that unchecked consumption could crater the world economy by 2100. Fifty years and much debate later, can humanity innovate quickly enough to avoid that fate?
According to the 2021 Census there are now almost one million Indigenous people in Australia. Although increase in population is a reason for this, there are some other factors to consider.
Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
India is now the third-largest birthplace of Australian residents behind Australia and England, while for the first time less than half of the population has identified as Christian.
Anthropologue et démographe, professeur émérite au Muséum national d’histoire naturelle et conseiller de la direction de l'INED, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (MNHN)