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现如今，世界人口已经不再呈现爆炸式增长了，可是还在持续增长中，世界人口还没有到达峰值。处在第一世界的很多发达国家已经出现人口负增长，而第三世界的国家人口增长仍然较快。究竟是什么原因导致这样的局面呢？世界人口会在近期达到峰值吗？
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A school for small families
Thanks to education, global fertility could fall faster than expected
受教育影响，全球生育率可能会比预计下降更快。
The world’s population in 2100 could be no higher than it is today
2100年世界人口可能不会比现在更多
THE AVERAGE woman in Niger has seven children. The average South Korean has barely one. The future size of the world’s population depends largely on how quickly child-bearing habits in places like Niger become more like those in South Korea. If women in high-fertility countries keep having lots of babies, the number of people will keep swelling. The sooner they curb their fecundity, the sooner it will peak and start falling.
在尼日尔，平均每个妇女生育七个孩子。而在韩国，平均每个妇女仅仅只生育一个孩子。世界未来人口规模主要取决于像尼日尔这样的地区生育习惯会多快趋近于韩国这类国家。如果在这些生育率高的国家，女性继续生育很多孩子，世界人口会继续增长。她们越早开始抑制生育，世界人口将越早达到峰值，并开始降低。
Notes
Swell: v. Become or make greater in intensity, number, amount, or volume.
eg: the city's population was swollen by refugees.
Fecundity: n. The ability to produce an abundance of offspring or new growth; fertility.
The UN projects that fertility will fall gradually and that lifespans will increase, so the world’s population will rise from 7.7bn today to 11.2bn by 2100. (This is its best estimate; the UN says it is 95% confident that the true figure will lie between 9.6bn and 13.2bn.) Opinions are divided over the effects of such growth. For some, a more crowded planet will be an environmental disaster. For others, those billions of extra brains will help humanity devise ever more cunning solutions to its problems.
联合国预计生育率会逐步降低，人的寿命会增长，所以到2100年，世界人口会从当前的77亿上涨到112亿。（此为联合国当前最佳估算；联合国有95%的把握认为实际数据会介于96亿到132亿之间。）人们对此般人口增长的影响意见不一。一些人认为地球人口日益增长将会引起环境灾难。一些人认为多出来的几十亿人会帮助人类制定出更聪明的解决方案，以解决地球所面临的问题。
Notes
Cunning:adj. Ingenious.
eg plants have evolved cunning defences.
But what if the projection is wrong? Some demographers argue that the UN underestimates how fast fertility will decline. It has already tumbled dramatically. Data from before the Industrial Revolution are spotty but evidence from countries that kept good records, such as America, suggests that a typical woman had seven or more children. By 1960 the global fertility rate had fallen to five. Today it is 2.4. This is only just above the “replacement rate” of 2.1, at which the population remains stable, with each generation replacing itself but no more. (The rate is more than two because not every baby grows up to be able to have children.)
但是要是这预测错了呢？一些人口学家认为联合国低估了未来生育率的下降速度。生育率已经急剧下降。工业革命之前的数据零零点点，但是从数据记录保存良好的国家来看，如美国，通常一个女性会生育7个或者更多的孩子。到1960年全球生育率降低到了5。目前生育率为2.4，这刚高出人口生育更替率2.1。当人口生育率为2.1，人口处于稳定状态，仅能达到世代更替，故被称为生育更替率2.1。（人口生育更替率大于二，是因为不是每个婴儿长大之后都能生孩子。）
Nearly all rich countries have sub-replacement fertility rates: the OECD average is 1.7. Middle-income countries are close, at 2.3. Only in poor countries is fertility still high enough to fuel rapid population growth. In sub-Saharan Africa it is 4.8; in “heavily indebted poor countries” (as the World Bank calls them) it is 4.9. Pre-industrial fertility rates persist only in the poorest parts of the poorest countries.