World population may hit 11 billion by 2100: study

September 19, 2014 01:53

The world population may grow larger than previously estimated, reaching 11 billion people by century's end, according to a UN-led analysis published today.

That would mean two billion more people on Earth than expected by 2100, largely due to high birth rates in Africa, said the report in the US journal Science.

"The consensus over the past 20 years or so was that world population, which is currently around seven billion, would go up to nine billion and level off or probably decline," said co-author Adrian Raftery, professor of statistics and of sociology at the University of Washington.

"We found there's a 70 percent probability the world population will not stabilize this century," he added.

The study is uses the most recent United Nations population data, released in July, and employs Bayesian statistics to combine all available information to generate better predictions.

Previous estimates typically relied on expert opinions about how life expectancy and fertility rates would change over time.

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