St. Louis Fed, Report: The End of Rapid Population Growth

“The world’s population recently reached 8 billion people—the culmination of a century of rapid population growth. Whereas it took 125 years for the world’s population to double from 1 billion (in 1803) to 2 billion (in 1928), it took only 47 years to reach 4 billion in 1975, and another 47 years to reach 8 billion last year.”

“However, the era of rapid population growth is coming to an end … the United Nations projects that the world’s population will peak at around 10.5 billion people later this century before beginning to decline.”