First lets get the facts right, Modern Homo sapiens (people live us) started walking on the earth around 50000 years ago, (According to the United Nations Determinants and Consequences of Population Trends)
Now, estimating total number of people to ever live on the earth is dependent on two things:
1. The length of time humans have been on this Earth &
2. The average size of human population at different time periods.
But it is not that simple either, because for 99% of human existence on this earth, there exist no demographic data. With assumptions about prehistoric populations, we can get a fair idea of this significant number.
Life during prehistoric times was hard, and population grew and fell is different places in response to famine, climatic conditions, disease and other hostilities.
At the start of agriculture and farming about 8,000 B.C.E., the world population was just 5 million and population growth was very low at just 0.05% per year.
Average life expectancy in Iron Age was only about 10 or 12 years. In any case, life was short & infant mortality very high at 500 infant deaths per 1000 births, for most of human history.
Under such situation disproportionately a large number of births was required to maintain the population growth. No wonder our grandparents and great grandparents had so many siblings.
By 1 C.E., the world had 300 million people. By 1650, the world’s population rose to about 500 million
By 1800, the global population had just hit the 1 billion mark, and since then it has continued to grow to its current size of 7.8 billion.
This growth in population in recent times are mainly driven by advances in medicine, technology and nutrition leading to lowered death rates and allowing more people to live into their reproductive age.
Now, assuming a constant growth rate of 80 per 1000 per year from 1 CE, 60 per 1000 from 3 CE to 1750, and a decline in birth rate to 30 by modern times. (although there are theories differing in view)
Total number of people to be born since the dawn of modern human race can be calculated to be around 109 billion. It is the number of people of our species that has ever lived on this earth from 50000 BCE to 2020.
Now, out of these 109 billion people to ever live on the earth, 7.2% are alive today. (i.e the population of the world today, estimated at 7.8 Billion people)
And if you are reading this article you are one among the lucky 7.2 %
Viz. of the article
Link to video on how many people have ever lived:
Link to Visualization on how many people have ever lived on the earth:
My curious calculation table:
Thanks to
Toshiko Kaneda, author of:
