2001 World Population Data Sheet

PRB's 2001 World Population Data Sheet contains the latest population estimates, projections, and other key indicators for 200 countries, including births, deaths, natural increase, infant mortality, total fertility, life expectancy, urban population, HIV/AIDS prevalence, contraceptive use, GNI PPP per capita, land area, and population per square mile.

The 2001 World Population Data Sheet can be viewed below, in html format, or by clicking on DataFinder (above). In DataFinder, you can search for data on 85 demographic variables for 221 countries, 28 world regions and sub-regions, the world as a whole, the United States as a whole, and the U.S. states. (Not all countries have data on all variables.)

• Highlights
• New Data Column Features
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Sources
• Definitions

Data Sheet 1

• Population Mid-2001 (millions)
• Births Per 1,000 Pop.
• Deaths Per 1,000 Pop.
• Rate of Natural Increase (%)
• Projected Pop. Change 2001 – 2050 (%)

Data Sheet 2

• Projected Population (millions) 2025
• Projected Population (millions) 2050
• Infant Mortality Rate
• Total Fertility Rate
• Population of Age <15

Data Sheet 3

• Percent of Population of Age 65+
• Life Expectancy at Birth (years)
• Life Expectancy at Birth (years) Male
• Life Expectancy at Birth (years) Female
• Data Avail. Code

Data Sheet 4

• Percent Urban
• Percent of Pop. 15-49 with HIV/AIDS End-1999
• Percent of Married Women 15-49 Using Contraception* (All Methods)
• Percent of Married Women 15-49 Using Contraception* (Modern Methods)

Data Sheet 5

• Govt. View of Birth Rate
• GNI PPP Per Capita, 1999, (US$)
• Area of Countries (square miles)
• Population Per Square Mile
• Capital City

2001 Data Sheet Highlights

AIDS

With more than 23 million adults living with HIV/AIDS, sub-Saharan Africa is ravaged by this epidemic. An astounding 36 percent of Botswana's 15- to 49-year-olds live with the disease. In Lesotho, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe, approximately 25 percent of adults in these prime ages have HIV. Namibia, South Africa, and Zambia each have prevalence rates of 20 percent among adults ages 15 to 49. In another nine sub-Saharan African countries, more than 10 percent of adults ages 15 to 49 are infected. South Africa has the highest number of adults living with the virus, at about 4.1 million. Nearly 3 million Ethiopian adults live with HIV.

Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, the largest numbers of people infected with HIV or living with AIDS are in India at 3.5 million. Globally, 15.7 million adults with AIDS are women and 1.3 million are children below the age of 15.

Population Decline in Europe

Many European populations are experiencing more deaths than births annually, a phenomenon that is not occurring in any other world region. Ukraine and Russia have the largest gaps between birth rates and death rates. The population of Ukraine is losing about 340,000 people each year from having more deaths than births and the population of Russia is losing 950,000 people. In the absence of offsetting international migration, the population of these countries will decline in size. In addition to very low birth rates, a chief cause for surplus European deaths is the relatively high proportion of the region's population in the older ages where death rates are higher. Fifteen percent of Europe's population is age 65 or older, compared with 7 percent for the world.

Population Growth in Less Developed Countries

Nearly all of the world's population growth continues to occur in less developed countries. World population increases by about 83 million annually — 99 percent of this increase occurs in the less developed countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Oceania. According to current population projections, only three of the more developed countries, the United States, Russia, and Japan, are expected to remain among the world's most populous by 2025. The United States is expected to remain in third place, but Russia will drop from seventh to ninth, Japan will drop from ninth to eleventh, and Germany will no longer be in the top fifteen.

World's Largest Countries in 2001

World's Largest Countries in 2025

New Data Column Features

This year, several significant changes have been made to the Data Sheet. First, given the rapidly growing importance of HIV/AIDS in both the mortality level and consequences for population projections, for the foreseeable future an annual HIV/AIDS prevalence column will be featured. Demographers once pointed out that population projections rarely, if ever, incorporated any anticipated effects of future epidemics or famines into their projections, but AIDS has changed all that. AIDS has emerged as a variable every bit as important as infant mortality or life expectancy and, of course, affects even those variables.

Second, after comments from users, it was decided to remove "doubling time" from the Data Sheet, largely because it has become somewhat irrelevant, particularly in most more developed countries. It is still valuable as a teaching tool to show that a seemingly low population growth rate such as 3 percent really is quite high. We will continue to feature how doubling time is calculated and its significance in the notes section of the Data Sheet. Doubling time has been replaced by a column showing the percentage growth or decline in population size anticipated from the base year (2001 in this case) to mid-century. That percentage can take into account population change resulting from anticipated trends in fertility, mortality, and migration.

Finally, the column on Gross National Product (now called Gross National Income, or GNI, by the World Bank) has been replaced by GNI adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity or PPP (see accompanying text).

The Value of "Doubling Time"

The doubling time of a population is simply the number of years it would take for a population to double in size if the present rate of growth remained unchanged. Used for many years, its primary purpose has been to emphasize just how quickly populations can grow, doubling their numbers geometrically. Today however, many countries, particularly those in Europe, are not expected to double their population numbers any time in the foreseeable future, if ever.

There has also been an understandable tendency for users of the Data Sheet to quote doubling times as if they could be used to forecast a country's future population size. Most projections for less developed countries, however, make the assumption that fertility will decline as a natural feature of the demographic transition from high birth and death rates to low ones, so that the rate of growth will, in fact, not remain constant. The rise of AIDS, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, has also changed the outlook to the point where the value of doubling time is even further diminished.

But the concept still does have value. The power of a growth rate such as 3 percent (giving a doubling time of only 23 years) can be dramatically illustrated. In addition, it serves to remind us that populations do double in size if their growth rates remain constant. Thus, a population of 20 million could grow to 40 million, then 80 million, then 160 million, and so on, until the growth curve becomes near vertical. In part, it may have been this realization that caused so many less developed countries to adopt slow-growth policies that have been met with varying degrees of success, as the Data Sheet clearly shows.

To calculate doubling time, divide the country's growth rate into the number 70 (actually 69.3 for better accuracy). Thus, a growth rate of 2 percent will double a population in only 35 years, 1 percent in 70 years, and so forth.

Purchasing Power Parity — What Does a Dollar Buy?

Another significant change we are making to the Data Sheet this year is replacing the column on Gross National Income (GNI) per capita (formerly called Gross National Product, or GNP, by the World Bank) with one on Gross National Income per capita adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP). GNI PPP per capita is gross national income in purchasing power parity divided by mid-year population.

GNI is the total value of all goods and services produced within a country plus net income earned abroad by nationals. GNI PPP refers to gross national income converted to "international" dollars using a purchasing power parity conversion factor. International dollars indicate the amount of goods or services one could buy in the United States with a given amount of money.

GNI PPP provides an indicator of the welfare of people that is comparable across countries free of price and exchange rate distortions that occur when GNI is converted using market exchange rates.

Comparison of Gross National Income and Gross National Income in PPP, 1999

Notes: Gross National Income (GNI) refers to the value of all goods and services produced within a country plus net income earned from abroad by nationals. Gross National Income in Purchasing Power Parity refers to the amount of goods and services that GNI would buy in the United States.

Many interesting comparisons result from the use of PPP. In India, for example, GNI per capita is a low US$440, but, when adjusted for purchasing power, it rises considerably to US$2,230, a result of the lower cost of goods and services in India relative to the United States. In other words, US$440 in India would buy purchases worth US$2,230 in the United States. GNI PPP is nearly always higher than the GNI in less developed countries. However, Japan and many countries in western Europe have higher costs of living than in the United States. As a result, their GNI PPP is lower than GNI converted at market exchange rates. Note that because the U.S. dollar is the standard currency on which PPP is based, GNI and GNI PPP for the United States are the same value in the table above.

One caveat is that GNI data should not be confused with "per capita income," or personal money income earned through employment or other means. GNI does not necessarily reflect the amount of money that people have to spend because some of this income is paid in taxes or otherwise unavailable.

The estimates of GNI PPP used here are from the World Bank and are regularly published in the annual World Bank Atlas and World Development Indicators. While no measure of economic well-being is perfect, these PPP estimates should help make better country-to-country comparisons of people's economic welfare.

Acknowledgments, Notes, Sources, and Definitions

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance and cooperation of staff members of the International Programs Center of the U.S. Census Bureau; the Population Division and the Statistics Division of the United Nations (UN); the Population and Migration Division of the Council of Europe; the Institut national d'études démographiques (INED), Paris; the World Bank; and Ralf Ulrich, CEO, Eridion GmbH, Germany, in the preparation of this year's Data Sheet. Suzanne Baker, former PRB Policy Fellow, produced many of the population projections in this year's Data Sheet.

Notes

The Data Sheet lists all geopolitical entities with populations of 150,000 or more and all members of the UN. These include sovereign states, dependencies, overseas departments, and some territories whose status or boundaries may be undetermined or in dispute. More developed regions, following the UN classification, comprise all of Europe and North America, plus Australia, Japan, and New Zealand. All other regions and countries are classified as less developed. Country regional designations also follow UN practice. As a result, North America does not include countries of Latin America classified as less developed.

World and Regional Totals: Regional population totals are independently rounded and include small countries or areas not shown. Regional and world rates and percentages are weighted averages of countries for which data are available; regional averages are shown when data or estimates are available for at least three-quarters of the region's population.

Sub-Saharan Africa: All countries of Africa except the Northern African countries of Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Western Sahara.

World Population Data Sheets from different years should not be used as a time series. Fluctuations in values from year to year often reflect revisions based on new data or estimates rather than actual changes in levels. Additional information on likely trends and consistent time series can be obtained from PRB, and are also available in UN and U.S. Census Bureau publications.

Sources

The rates and figures are primarily compiled from the following sources: official country statistical yearbooks and bulletins; United Nations Demographic Yearbook, 1999 (forthcoming) and Population and Vital Statistics Report, Data Available as of 1 April 2001 (forthcoming) of the UN Statistics Division; World Population Prospects: The 2000 Revision of the UN Population Division; the UN Statistical Library; Recent Demographic Developments in Europe, 2000 of the Council of Europe; Population 55:4-5 (INED) La conjoncture démographique, by Jean-Paul Sardon; and the data files and library resources of the International Programs Center, U.S. Census Bureau. Other sources include recent demographic surveys such as the Demographic and Health Surveys, Reproductive Health Surveys, special studies, and direct communication with demographers and statistical bureaus in the United States and abroad. Specific data sources may be obtained by contacting the authors of the 2001 World Population Data Sheet.

For countries with complete registration of births and deaths, rates are those most recently reported. For more developed countries, nearly all vital rates refer to 1999 or 2000, and for less developed countries, for some point in the late 1990s.

Definitions

Mid-2001 Population
Estimates are based on a recent census, official national data, or UN and U.S. Census Bureau projections. The effects of refugee movements, large numbers of foreign workers, and population shifts due to contemporary political events are taken into account to the extent possible.

Birth and Death Rate
The annual number of births and deaths per 1,000 total population. These rates are often referred to as "crude rates" since they do not take a population's age structure into account. Thus, crude death rates in more developed countries, with a relatively large proportion of high-mortality older population, are often higher than those in less developed countries with lower life expectancy.

Rate of Natural Increase (RNI)
The birth rate minus the death rate, implying the annual rate of population growth without regard for migration. Expressed as a percentage.

Projected Population 2025 and 2050
Projected populations based upon reasonable assumptions on the future course of fertility, mortality, and migration. Projections are based upon official country projections, series issued by the UN or the U.S. Census Bureau, or PRB projections.

Infant Mortality Rate
The annual number of deaths of infants under age 1 year per 1,000 live births. Rates shown with decimals indicate national statistics reported as completely registered, while those without are estimates from the sources cited above. Rates shown in italic are based upon less than 50 annual infant deaths and, as a result, are subject to considerable yearly variability.

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)
The average number of children a woman would have assuming that current age-specific birth rates remain constant throughout her childbearing years (usually considered to be ages 15 to 49).

Population Under Age 15/Age 65+
The percentage of the total population in these ages, which are often considered the "dependent ages."

Life Expectancy at Birth
The average number of years a newborn infant can expect to live under current mortality levels.

Data Availability Code
Provides a general indication of data availability. An "A" indicates a country with both complete vital statistics (birth and death data) and either a national-level census within 10 years or a continuous population register. If a country has complete vital statistics or a continuous population register and a national-level census within 15 years, they are rated "B." Also rated "B" are countries that have one of the three sources necessary for an "A" plus either a usable national survey or a sample registration system within 10 years. "C" indicates that at least a census (within 15 years), a survey (within 10 years), or sample registration system is available. "D" indicates that little or no reliable demographic information is available and that estimates are based on fragmentary data or demographic models. Countries whose demographic situations have been seriously disrupted and for which there are few recent data are also coded "D." There can be considerable variation in the quality of data within the same category.

Percent Urban
Percentage of the total population living in areas termed "urban" by that country. Typically, the population living in towns of 2,000 or more or in national and provincial capitals is classified "urban."

Percent of Adult Population Ages 15 to 49 With HIV/AIDS
The estimated percentage of adults with HIV/AIDS at the end of 1999. These data are compiled by UNAIDS and the World Health Organization.

Contraceptive Use
The percentage of currently married or "in-union" women of reproductive age who are currently using any form of contraception.
"Modern" methods include clinic and supply methods such as the pill, IUD, condom, and sterilization. Data are from the most recent available national-level surveys, such as the Demographic and Health Survey, Reproductive Health Survey programs, and the UN Population Division Levels and Trends of Contraceptive Use as Assessed in 1998. Other sources include direct communication with national statistical organizations and the databases of the United Nations Population Division and the U.S. Census Bureau. Data refer to some point in the 1990s. Data prior to 1995 are shown in italics.

Government View of Current Birth Rate
This population policy indicator presents the officially stated position of country governments on the level of the national birth rate. Most indicators are from the UN Population Division, Global Population Policy Data Base, 1999.

GNI PPP Per Capita, 1999 (US$)
GNI PPP per capita is Gross National Income in purchasing power parity (PPP) divided by midyear population. GNI PPP refers to Gross National Income converted to "international" dollars using a purchasing power parity conversion factor. International dollars indicate the amount of goods and services one could buy in the United States with a given amount of money.

Copyright © 2001 Population Reference Bureau, May 2001
ISSN 0085-8315
Data prepared by demographers Carl Haub and Diana Cornelius
Design and production: Heather Lilley, PRB
Photo © 2000 Artville

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