Billions of people are not counted in the population census

Population Explosion

 Study Questions Earth's Population... Billions of People Are Not Counted

After the United Nations announced in November 2022 that the world's population had surpassed 8 billion, a study emerged to question this figure. A recent study conducted by researchers at Aalto University in Finland revealed that the figures circulating today may be incorrect.

According to the study, published in the journal Nature Communications, there are millions, perhaps billions, of people not counted in official population censuses. This is due to fundamental methodological flaws in the methods used to calculate global population estimates.

The study also indicates that population estimates omit between 53% and 84% of the rural population, meaning that the actual numbers may be closer to 10 billion, the projected number for 2080, according to the scientific journal. It indicated that statistics significantly undercount the population in rural areas due to the grid-based method commonly used to count people.

Population estimates traditionally rely on the "grid-based" approach, which divides the world into quadrants and then estimates the population in each quadrant based on census data.

Error in Estimation

However, this method was designed to rely on data from urban areas, resulting in reduced accuracy when applied to rural areas. Given that rural areas contain about 43% of the world's population, any miscalculation could result in significant missing populations.

To verify the accuracy of these estimates, the researchers analyzed global population data from 1975 to 2010, focusing on dam construction projects in 35 countries.

"For the first time, our study provides evidence that a significant proportion of the rural population may be missing from global population datasets," said environmental engineer Josias Lange Ritter of Aalto University.

"Much Higher"

He continued, "We were surprised to find that the actual population living in rural areas was much higher than global population data indicate." He explained that the rural population was underestimated by between 53% and 84% during the period studied.

The researchers also say that the large discrepancy between population estimates and the actual number of people relocated in an area is due to less data being available for rural areas.

However, some scientists who were not involved in the study questioned the results, pointing out that improvements in satellite imagery and the quality of data collection in some countries will reduce these discrepancies.