Global demographic trends over the past twenty-five years have divided the world into two camps. While individual states, taking advantage of migration and high birth rates, multiply human capital several times, almost every seventh country on the planet is recording a decline. The absolute outsider in this process is Ukraine, which ranked last in the world in terms of population decline. This was reported by Visual Capitalist on April 6.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the global population grew by an average of 46.6% between 2000 and 2025. However, this growth is provided extremely unevenly. The main demographic boom is generated not by the world’s largest economies, but by a narrow group of countries in the Persian Gulf and sub-Saharan Africa.
The undisputed leader is Qatar (1st place), whose population has increased by an unprecedented 423.4%. This jump is solely the result of the massive recruitment of foreign workers to service the energy sector and develop infrastructure.
At the opposite pole are countries from which the population is leaving en masse or where the birth rate is rapidly declining. The deepest drop among the 183 countries analyzed was recorded in Ukraine – the loss was 32.5% (the last, 183rd place in the ranking). The Marshall Islands are slightly higher with a decline of 29.4% (182nd place).
