Finding general estimates for how many people have been born since a specific date

billwill

I'm currently writing a book and I've run into a little issue early on.

I need statistics (estimates would do [obviously]) about how many people have been born (on the entire planet) since a certain date in time. Is there some website out there that will allow me to plug in, say, the year 1700 and see that?

If not, how would you advise I go about calculating this?

UrQuanLord88

With my mediocre Google-fu: http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldhis.html
Redirected from: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/World_population

The UN probably is the next best place to check. I don't think it would hurt to send emails to other statistics groups, World Bank etc.

Just Google. I did and it seems to be rather effective.

billwill

I did Google. And I got what you got. However that was not what I was looking for.

I didn't say I needed what the population was at a specific date. I said I wanted the number of people born since that date to present.

They are very different things.

UrQuanLord88

The information you need are on those sites. What you might want to look for specifically are the history of birth rates for world population. At most you have to do a little math to get the figures you need.

The crude birth rate (CBR) is equal to the number of live births (b) in a year divided by the total midyear population (p). This number is then usually multiplied by 1,000 to arrive at the actual crude birth rate.

Therefore, the formula for crude birth rate is:
CBR = (b/p)*1000

Example. In 2007, there were 3,250 births in a city with population of 223,000. Therefore:
CBR = (3,250/223,000)*1,000
CBR = 14.57
So, there were 14.57 births for every 1,000 people in the city.

Find CBR, find total midyear population, then use a calculator to find number of live births in a year = (CBR*p)/1000

Then add all the live births of all the years you want to get the total number of people born since a certain date to another certain date.

EDIT: Or I guess you can find the population growth per year and add the number of deaths in that year to find number of births in that year.

Whacktose

Google "death adjustment" or something similar. Using world population data and the estimated death rate will let you extrapolate the information you are looking for.