Academics’ comment on world population hitting 8 billion

Vinice Mabansag, the world’s 8 billionth person, was born on 15 November at 1:29 local time at the Dr Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila, Philippines. This did not escape the attention of our academics, dr Krzysztof Książkiewicz and dr Joanna Zych of the Human Biology Museum of the Faculty of Biological Sciences of the University of Wrocław.

For a few hundred thousand years from the appearance of Homo sapiens in Africa, the human population did not exceed the number of inhabitants of present-day Warsaw (1.76 million). The situation began to change significantly with the emergence of agriculture around 12 thousand years ago. At that time, the population began to increase rapidly and reached approximately 170 million people by the beginning of the Common Era. At the time of the baptism of Poland, the population was less than 250 million; in 1600, it was already half a billion, and it reached the first billion in 1804. We had to wait over a hundred years to cross another threshold – the population exceeded 2 billion in 1927. A person born in that year, now aged 95, witnessed a fourfold increase in the world’s population, which hit 3 billion in 1956, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1987, 6 billion in 1999, 7 billion in 2011, and 8 billion this year.

What lies ahead? Are we at risk of overpopulation?

While this is only a prediction based on a mathematical model of the current population growth, the increase in the number of people is slowing down. The world’s population should hit the 9 billion mark in 2037, but it is not expected to reach 10 billion until around 2080.

On the occasion of the world’s 8-billion person’s birthday, school students are invited to participate in museum classes offered by the Human Biology Museum of the Department of Human Biology of the University of Wrocław. Class topics: anatomy of the musculoskeletal system, anthropogenesis, mechanisms of evolution, mummification, genetic disorders. Workshop class topics: determination of age and sex from skeletal remains, anthropometric measurements. Until the end of 2022, you can buy a ticket for a symbolic price of 8 PLN. For more details, visit the website: https://muzeum-czlowieka.uni.wroc.pl/.

Translated by Natalia Noworól (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.