Have you ever heard the claim that there are more people alive on Earth right now than the total number of people who have ever lived? It’s an intriguing idea, especially considering how rapidly the human population has grown in recent centuries.
Since 1900, our population has skyrocketed from 1.6 billion to over 8 billion today, thanks to advancements in industry and agriculture. With such exponential growth, it’s reasonable to think that there may have been a time when the living outnumbered the dead.
But here’s the surprising truth: the data and estimates we have actually prove this idea wrong.
It wasn’t until around 1800 that we started to have more accurate population data.
“Once we began keeping written records, conducting censuses, and collecting taxes, we gained a better understanding of population,” explained Wendy Baldwin of the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) in a 2012 interview with the BBC. Before that, estimates were our only option, considering that modern humans left Africa 60,000 years ago.
The PRB used population estimates from different historical periods and applied a declining birth rate to reflect the changing times. This method provided a rough estimate of the number of births (and consequently deaths), although it would have been more accurate if ancient civilizations had prioritized record-keeping over other survival necessities.
According to their calculations, approximately 117 billion births have occurred since 190,000 BCE, far surpassing the current global population of 8 billion.
“If we were to question our findings, it might be that our method slightly underestimates the number of births,” the PRB acknowledged. “The assumption of a constant population growth in earlier times may have led to an underestimation of the average population size during those periods.”
