NYTimes -- Humanity's Slowing Growth

I have been in discussions about our slowing population growth and found that people did not believe me. Years of worry about the population explosion is slow to recede. There has been a dramatic reversal in the rate of growth and even these latest U.N. estimates look still too high which I base on an earlier report which would be revised down now.

In the second half of the century, the entire world's population should start declining, if these demographic projections prevail.

In the developing world, fertility rates average three children, down from six a half-century ago, and the U.N. projects that the rate will dip below the replacement level in most poor countries later this century. Slower growth rates are both the cause and consequence of a higher standard of living, and of the emancipation of women.

There are also alarming reasons for the drop in the population growth rate — notably the H.I.V./AIDS epidemic. It is one of the factors the United Nations cited in revising its 2050 world population projections, from 9.3 billion people down to 8.9 billion (we're at 6.3 billion today). The U.N. estimates that there will be a half-billion fewer people in the 53 nations most afflicted by AIDS than there would have been.

America's population, boosted by a higher fertility rate and immigration, is projected to be 409 million in 2050, up from 285 million today.