A new U.N. report says the world's population is likely to increase by almost one billion in the next 12 years, with most of the growth happening in developing regions such as Africa.
The report released Thursday by the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs projects a rise in the global population from the current level of 7.2 billion to 8.1 billion in 2025.
The U.N. says the figure is expected to reach 9.6 billion in 2050, primarily on growth in high-fertility African nations and countries with large populations such as India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines and the United States. In the next 37 years, the population of developed regions is seen remaining largely unchanged at around 1.3 billion.
The report says women in 29 African nations with high fertility rates have an average of five or more children.
The U.N. study says another factor contributing to population growth is longer life spans in the world's least developed countries, many of them affected by HIV/AIDS. It says life expectancy is projected to increase in those nations from 58 years in the 2005-2010 period to 70 years in 2045-2050.
Another key prediction in the report is that India's population will surpass that of China around 2028, when both countries are expected to have around 1.45 billion people. It also says Nigeria's population is likely to exceed that of the United States by 2050.