Report: Humans are going extinct and it's not even too far away

A group of researchers put forward a striking forecast: Homo sapiens may become extinct within the next few centuries, not thousands of years as earlier studies suggested. Most extinction research has focused on plants and animals, and when humans are considered, it is usually framed as a possibility rather than something inevitable. The authors of this new work disagree, saying: “We agree that extinction will happen, but we disagree on the timing.”

Their projections are based on fertility data from 2019 to 2025 across all five United Nations regions (Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania). Using a “bottom-up” probabilistic method with 66% confidence intervals, they outline a sharp decline in global population. The current population of 8.1 billion is expected to rise slightly to between 8.4 and 9.0 billion by 2039. After that, the numbers fall: between 2.59 and 2.82 billion by 2130, between 1.4 and 1.9 billion by 2139, and between 51.53 and 72.11 million by 2230. By 2239, the population is projected at 4.5 to 6.3 million, dropping to 3.0 to 4.1 million by 2280. By 2300, only 767,400 to 997,400 remain. By 2360, the figure shrinks to 33,040 to 40,189, and by 2415, just 1,058 to 1,281 people are left, at which point extinction occurs.

The regional timeline shows Asia disappearing first in 2280, followed by Europe in 2295, the Americas in 2300, Africa in 2360, and Oceania in 2415. The reasons vary but share common themes: people choosing to have fewer children, advances in contraceptive technology, rising infertility in both men and women, the high cost of raising children, and aging populations moving beyond reproductive years.

The researchers stress that human extinction would be different from that of other species. While many species face external threats such as climate change or habitat loss, humans appear to be heading toward extinction due to internal circumstances. They also warn that humanity likely bears responsibility for a possible sixth mass extinction, but note that our own decline may come too late to prevent it.

This work reframes extinction studies by showing human decline as a measurable process. It suggests that within 314 to 424 years, Homo sapiens will vanish, not because of outside forces but because of demographic collapse driven by fertility decline.

Source: University of California (link1, link2, link3)

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