I was browsing my CNN app when I saw an article saying Earth is to reach 7 billion people by the end of this year. It said most of the growth will be in developing nations.
However, my opinion on the matter is as follows:
If you look back over the course of human history, particularly over the past 200 years, you see the population has been on the rise mostly due to technological breakthroughs. However, 12 kids in 1800 would be a dream come true.
12 kids today would be financial Self Delete. And that's what this all boils down to is finance and life expectancy. In 1800 maybe 3 of those kids would survive. Today, they all probably would.
Not only life expectancy, but people had many children on purpose to bring them income to support the family. Children would work the farms or work in factories. Today, children can't work and require schooling which costs money. It's become more expensive to raise children.
Using these facts my prediction is that soon, the population will steadily decline and later stabilize. This also includes 3rd world countries as they are gradually pulled into the global financial system.
/discuss populations n stuff