Poor Nations Populations Grow Fastest

Report Finds Up To 86 Percent Of People Will Live In "Less-Developed" Countries By 2050

(AP)  The world's poorest countries have one thing in ever greater abundance: people.

"Nearly all of world population growth is now concentrated in the world's poorer countries," said Bill Butz, president of the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington-based independent research organization.

Currently 1.2 billion people live in countries classified as developed by the United Nations, compared with 5.5 billion in less developed regions, PRB said in its annual Population Data Sheet, released Monday.

There is little growth in the richer countries and even declines in some.

"And by 2050, global population is projected to rise to 9.3 billion. Between now and mid-century, these diverging growth patterns will boost the population share living in today's less-developed countries from 82 percent to 86 percent," PRB demographer Carl Haub said.

Other findings from the data sheet:

Some 35 percent of the population in the least-developed countries is undernourished, which rises to 60 percent in some sub-Saharan countries.

One in 75 women died of complications during pregnancy in less-developed countries. In developed countries, the rate of maternal death is one in 6,000.

Lifetime fertility is 5.4 children per woman in sub-Saharan Africa and 4.7 in the least-developed countries. In the developed countries, women average 1.6 children.

The world will have an urban majority for the first time this year, when more than half the people live in cities.

© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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by zucchiniman August 19, 2008 5:07 PM EDT

I guess it would be difficult to perform one billion vasectomies, but maybe we should try.

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[zucchiniman]

I guess it would be difficult to perform one billion vasectomies, but maybe we should try.