Migration and population change - drivers and impacts

According to the medium-variant projection of the United Nations, the world’s population is likely to increase from 7.6 billion in 2017 to 8.6 billion by 2030, the target year of the Sustainable Development Goals, and to 9.8 billion in 2050.1 Most of this increase will take place in the developing regions, while the developed regions will, for the first time in recorded history, start to experience negative population growth by around 2040 or 2050. Under a scenario that assumes a net migration of zero, the projected population of the developed regions would be nine per cent smaller in 2050 than if current migration trends continued. With no migration, or with equivalent levels of immigration and emigration, the population of the developing regions would be about one per cent larger in 2050 than if current migration trends continued