UN Report – Spain´s Population To Halve And Economy To Plummet

A United Nations sponsored report published in the Lancet paints a bleak picture for Spain´s population size and economy over the coming decades.

The IHME (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation ) predicts that the Spanish population will fall from 46 million to 23 million inhabitants by the turn of the century.

Spain joins over 20 countries – including Japan, Italy, Portugal, South Korea and Poland who will see similar drastic reductions in the size of their populations.

Overall the planet will hold nearly 2 billion less people than earlier predictions and will have a population of 8.8 billion people by 2100. The vast majority of countries of the world will see populations fall with declining fertility rates and ageing populations the trend for the coming decades with only  sub-Saharan Africa bucking the trend with it´s population expected to treble in size to over three billion people.

The fall in global populations will affect all major countries with a worldwide slowing fertility rate that will impact the economic and political global balance.

The report predicts that China’s gross domestic product will overtake that of the  United States by 2050 but that the US economy will be back on top by 2010.

By the end of the century, the world will be “multi-polar, with India, Nigeria, China and the United States the dominant powers,” leading to “radical shifts in geopolitical power”. India is expected to have the 3rd biggest economy while the European “Big Three” of Germany, France and the UK will still remain in the top 10.

Previous BRIC nations such as Brazil and Russia are also likely to fall down the pecking order.

Spain´s economy presently the 13th largest is predicted to fall to 28th,  trading places with Nigeria whose population is predicted to reach 800 million and have the 8th largest economy in the world.