Are there more people living now than have died in history?

Question

My daughter asked me a Halloween question today. Are there more dead people than living? Which got me thinking--how does the current population of the world compare to the total number of people there have been throughout history?

Answer 1

I do not know how it goes in the general population but 90% of the scientists who have ever lived are alive now

Answer 2

That's an interesting question. Intuitively, I thought that there would be much more dead... however after looking at a website with population estimates its closer than I thought.

In 1930, there was a little over 2 billion people in the world. I'm not sure how statistically correct this is... but as I rough estimate I'd say that about two billion people have died in the last ~75 years.

Also as you go backward, the life expectancies go down. When you jump to ~1875 there were about 1.5 billion.

That accounts for 3.5 billion dead by 1875. There were still about a billion in 1825 (so tack that on... 4.5 billion) Then as you go back even if the populations are considerably smaller, they didnt enjoy very high life expentencies.

And now that I think about the horrendous condition of many third world countries... I'd say the verdict is more dead.

What a morbid question yuck

Answer 3

No, there are much more dead people than living people. It will be a long time before the living outnumber the dead, since there are more people dying all the time, as well. The living won't surpass the dead for centuries, if ever.

Answer 4

I can't remember the source, But I've once heard that there have been 10 Billion people prior to the 6 Billion currently living.

Answer 5

I don't know the exact number, but im positive there is a significant amount of dead people copared to living. We had to do that question for one of my classes a couple years ago