The world population is expected to fall for the first time since the Black Death because of plummeting birth rates, a Lancet study has found. The decline in the number of children women are having has started to slow the growth of the global population, which stands at just over eight billion, and could mean it starts to fall within decades.

It would be the first time that the number of people on the planet has decreased since the Black Death bubonic plague pandemic killed as many as 50 million people in the mid-1300s, including up to a third of the population in Europe.