Aging
According to the UN’s latest biennial population forecast, the median age for all countries is due to rise from 29 now to 38 by 2050. At present just under 11% of the world’s 6.9 billion people are over 60. By 2050 that share will have risen to 22% (of a population of over 9 billion), and in the developed countries to 33%.
In 1900 average life expectancy at birth for the world as a whole was only around 30 years, and in rich countries under 50. The figures now are 67 and 78 respectively.
In the early 1970s women across the world were, on average, having 4.3 children each. The current global average is 2.6, and in rich countries only 1.6. By 2050 the global figure will have dropped to just two, and the world’s population will begin to level out.
“A slow-burning fuse,” by Barbara Beck