The Population of The World: Recent Trends and Prospects

Knowledge about population in the past, the present, and the future enables a person to see himself as an element in world population. During the three centuries of the Modern Era, population growth increased from about 4 per thousand to 10 per thousand per year during the interwar years. The rate of world population growth continued to accelerate after World War II, so that in 1963 it approximated 20 per 1000 per year. The acceleration in rate of total population growth was the result of sharp declines in mortality while fertility remained at relatively high levels. Prior to World War II, the spectacular decrease in the death rate of the economically advanced nations had not been shared by most of the population of the world. Of the peoples of non-European stock, only Japan had managed appreciably to increase longevity.