Population and development

Population dynamics influence development and vice versa, at various scale levels: global, continental/world-regional, national, regional, and local. Debates on how population growth affects development and how development affects population growth have already been subject of intensive debate and controversy since the late 18th century, and this debate is still ongoing. While these two debates initially focused mainly on natural population growth, the impact of migration on both population dynamics and development is also increasingly recognized. While world population will continue growing throughout the 21st century, there are substantial and growing contrasts between and within world-regions in the pace and nature of that growth, including some countries where population is stagnating or even shrinking. Because of these growing contrasts, population dynamics and their interrelationships with development have quite different governance implications in different parts of the world.