UN: Earth soon to reach 7 billion people

UNITED NATIONS -- Earth will be home to as many as 7 billion people Monday, according to UN projections about the world's population.

"We project that the 7 billionth baby will be born on Oct. 31st," said Omar Gharzeddine, a UN spokesman.

But the United Nations Population Fund, which crunches the numbers and projected the milestone in May, doesn't consider a Halloween birth a scary thing, saying it will be "marked by achievements, setbacks and paradoxes."

Last week, UN officials released a 135-page report profiling the world's population and, Monday, experts will discuss the implications of such a large population at a news conference at UN headquarters in New York.

In the report, The State of World Population 2011, experts note several trends:

World population grew by 1 billion since 1999, when it was 6 billion. In 1804, the population was estimated at 1 billion and it took 123 years to add another billion people.

Global average life expectancy has climbed from 48 years in the 1950s to 68 years.

Infant mortality dropped from 133 per 1,000 live births in the 1950s to 46 per 1,000.

Women have fewer children but the population keeps rising.

Older people and younger people are a larger part of the population than ever before: There are now 893 million people over 60; by 2050, there will be 2.4 billion people over 60. People under 25 are 43 percent of the world's population and up to 60 percent in some countries.

A high fertility rate in poor countries impedes development and perpetuates poverty. In rich countries, low fertility rates threaten sustained economic growth.

The income gap between rich and poor people is ever widening.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will discuss the challenges for the world's governments at the news conference tomorrow. Joining him will be UN General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, UN Population Fund executive director Babatunde Osotimehin and UN Population Fund special youth fellow Slagjana Sokolova.