• We convert the general SSP storylines into demographic scenarios for 195 countries. • Human populations are cross-classified by age, gender and level of education. • Future fertility and hence population growth will depend on female education. • In the median assumptions scenario (SSP2) world population will peak around 2070. • By 2100 world population ranges from 6.9 (SSP1) to 12.6 billion (SSP3).

Significance: The future of world population growth matters for future human well-being and interactions with the natural environment. We show the extent to which world population growth could be reduced by fully implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) whose health and education targets have direct and indirect consequences on future mortality and fertility trends. Although this assessment is consistent with the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways scenarios used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change context, it is inconsistent with the prediction range of the United Nations projections for which we present sensitivity analyses and suggests that their range is likely too narrow. Given our assumptions, the SDGs have a sizable effect on global population growth, providing an additional rationale for vigorously pursuing their implementation.

Using demographic multi-state, cohort-component methods, we produce projections for 120 countries (covering 93% of the world population in 2005) by five-year age groups, sex, and four levels of educational attainment for the years 2005-2050. Taking into account differentials in fertility and mortality by education level, we present the first systematic global educational attainment projections according to four widely differing education scenarios. The results show the possible range of future educational attainment trends around the world, thereby contributing to long-term economic and social planning at the national and international levels, and to the assessment of the feasibility of international education goals

Significance: India will soon be the world’s most populous country, but in terms of human capital and, consequently, Gross Domestic Product per capita, it has been trailing behind China. While some economists believe that India’s younger population will be an advantage over China’s aging one, here we show that much will depend on future investments in education and health and thus human capital. In terms of methodology, this paper addresses the question of what sources of observable population heterogeneity should be explicitly incorporated in population projections. It suggests that the dominant model of considering only the age and sex structures at the national level should be complemented by multidimensional models depending on the importance of heterogeneity and substantive user interest in the additional dimensions.

We addressed the issue of differential vulnerability to natural disasters at the level of village communities in Nepal. The focus lay on the relative importance of different dimensions of socioeconomic status and in particular, we tried to differentiate between the effects of education and income/wealth, the latter being measured through the existence of permanent housing structures. We studied damage due to floods and landslides in terms of human lives lost, animals lost, and other registered damage to households. The statistical analysis was carried out through several alternative models applied separately to the Terai and the Hill and Mountain Regions, as well as all of Nepal. At all levels and under all models, the results showed consistently significant effects of more education on lowering the number of human and animal deaths as well as the number of households otherwise affected. With respect to the wealth indicator, the picture was less clear and particularly with respect to losses in human lives, the estimated coefficients tended to have the wrong signs. We concluded that the effects of education on reducing disaster vulnerability tended to be more pervasive than those of income/wealth in the case of floods and landslides in Nepal