Institute Reports Record Increase In Population

The world’s population grew this year by 100 million people, to 5.75 billion, the largest increase ever, a population research group said Wednesday.

Ninety percent of the growth is in poor countries “already terribly torn by civil strife and social unrest and where all too many people live in brutal poverty,” Werner Fornos of the Population Institute said.

Fornos, giving the institute’s “1995 World Population Overview,” told reporters that effective birth control policies and practices could stabilize world population by 2015 at about 8 billion. But unless family planning is promoted actively, he said, there could be an increase to as many as 14 billion people.

“Some 3 billion young people will be entering their reproductive years in this coming generation,” Fornos said. “How well these young people are able to implement the awesome responsibility of parenting … will make the difference between our setting course for an environmental Armageddon in the 21st century or a better quality of life.”

The Population Institute receives no U.S. government money. Its funding comes from the United Nations, foundations and individuals.

To illustrate the difference between population growth in wealthy and poor countries, Fornos compared conditions in Iowa and the South Asian country Bangladesh, which have about the same area.

At present growth rates, Iowa will need a century to double its population of less than 3 million. But Fornos estimated that Bangladesh will double its 128 million people in less than 30 years.

Around the globe, he said, the people of 80 countries are reproducing at a rate to double their populations within those same 30 years or less. Of those, 43 are in Africa.

The report was not all gloomy. Fornos found about 30 “good news countries” where the number of children being born to the average woman has been declining.

“For instance, Mexico and Brazil in our hemisphere,” he said. “We’ve seen declines in Thailand, Indonesia.”

The biggest decline has been in China, with more than 1.2 billion people the world’s most populous country. Fornos said that in 1965 the average Chinese woman could expect to give birth to 6.5 live children in her lifetime. The figure now is to 1.4, he said.