The 21st century is still just a teenager, but we can already forecast with a fair degree of confidence what its demographic profile will look like by 2050.
Population growth will have slowed down. Global aging will have risen to unprecedented levels. Birthrates will drop. The working-age share of the world’s population will shrink. Poverty will ameliorate in poor countries; income inequality will worsen in wealthy ones. And for the first time ever, Islam will challenge Christianity as the world’s largest religion.
What’s notable about these disparate trends is how much they are interrelated. They’re driven not just by the traditional demographic triad of births-deaths-and-migration, but by myriad powerful new forces that define modernity — from the empowerment of women, to improvements in health care, to the information and technology revolutions, to the concurrent rise of secularization and religious fundamentalism.
However, the fact that they are connected does not mean they are universal. Beneath the broad umbrella of global demographic change, there will be sharp variances across regions (and sometimes within countries).
Population
The world’s population may not be growing as fast as it once did, but by 2050, it’s expected to reach 9.7 billion, up from 7.3 billion in 2015.
See the data
Consider the most basic demographic metric of all — population size. By midcentury, the world’s fastest-growing region, Africa, is projected to see its population more than double, while the slowest-growing region, Europe, is expected to see its population decline by about 4 percent.
This means that in 2050 there will be around 3.5 times more Africans (2.5 billion) than Europeans (707 million). In 1950, there were nearly twice as many Europeans as Africans. Demography is a drama in slow motion. But tick by tock, it transforms the world.
The staggering reversal of population fortunes is largely the result of the huge continental differences in birthrates — 1.6 children per woman in Europe today versus 4.7 children per woman in Africa. By midcentury, however, those rates are expected to increase in Europe and decrease in Africa, as both continents converge toward the projected global rate of roughly 2.25 down from 5 in 1950 and 2.5 in 2015.
Declining global birthrates mostly stem from women’s empowerment. As more girls and women have acquired more education, economic independence, and control over their reproductive decisions, they have had fewer babies. In the 35 years from 2015 to 2050, the world’s population is expected to rise by only 32 percent. During the 20th century, it nearly quadrupled.
As population growth slows, median ages will rise — the result not just of fewer children but also of steady increases in human longevity. By 2050, the share of the global population that is 60 or older will nearly double to 21.5 percent, from today’s 12.3 percent. Aging will be most pronounced in economic powerhouses like Japan, where the median age by midcentury will be 53, South Korea (54), Germany (51), China (50), and the United States (42). The global median age will be 36, up from today’s 30.
Aging
The “gray tsunami” will be a defining feature of the 21st century.
See the data
These aging societies will be hard-pressed to maintain their economic vitality as the working-age shares of their populations decline and the fiscal pressures on their health care systems and old-age social insurance programs grow.
Meanwhile, the less-developed countries throughout Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and parts of Asia are still experiencing a youth bulge (albeit one with less girth than in the past). Countries like India, Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, and Kenya will see the working-age shares of their population grow between now and midcentury. Their challenge will be to make the investments in human and physical capital needed to take advantage of this demographic dividend.
Since the turn of the millennium, these disparate age structures, along with the incessant march of technology, have already yielded different economic outcomes around the world. According to the World Bank, 1 billion people have climbed out of extreme poverty since 2000, the vast majority of them in poor countries, where inexpensive mobile technology has unlocked new economic opportunity in rural villages and urban slums.
Economics isn’t the only human realm in the throes of demographic change. The world’s religious profile is also undergoing a major shift, driven mostly by differences in fertility rates and age structures around the globe, as well as by faith-switching.
Islam is the fastest-growing major religion in the world. According to projections by the Pew Research Center, by midcentury, the number of Muslims (2.8 billion, or 30 percent of the world’s population) and Christians (2.9 billion, or 31 percent) will for the first time be at near parity. If current trends continue, Islam will surpass Christianity as the world’s largest religion around 2070.
Muslim women have the highest fertility rate of any major religion (an average of 3.1 children per woman). Christian women are not far behind (2.7), which places them above the global average of 2.5 and well above the replacement rate of 2.1.
Religion
For the first time ever, Islam and Christianity will be at near parity in their number of followers by 2050.
See the data
In fact for the first time, the Christian populations in France and the United Kingdom are projected to drop below half by midcentury. The growth of Christianity is expected to slow in part due to followers leaving the faith, a phenomenon most prevalent in developed countries like the United States (where the Christian population is projected to decline from more than three-quarters in 2010 to two-thirds in 2050). In comparison, throughout Europe, the Muslim population is expected to rise slightly (to 10.2 percent from today’s 5.9 percent). These projections are dependent on migration patterns that could be affected by geopolitical developments.
That caveat applies to all projections: Demography is the future we already know — except when it isn’t. Harold Macmillan, a 20th-century British prime minister, put it well. When asked what might blow his government off course, he replied, “Events, dear boy, events.”
makati1 on Mon, 16th Jan 2017 8:04 pm
Pretty charts and colors. Not much in the way of reality. They assume that all will progress in the future as it seems to be doing now. No mention of the effects of climate change or depleting energy. Perhaps in, oh, 20 years, the climate drys up the U$ Midwest and it has to import most of its food, or the deserts of Africa explode into the African heartland, or … well, you suggest the change that will blow up this ‘projection’. Nice “what if” but I would not change my life betting on it being fact.
Dooma on Mon, 16th Jan 2017 8:09 pm
I am 44 and do not expect to see any sort of pension or generous government-funded health care system by the time I reach the mandated retirement age of 67 (watch this space). All of these benefits will be spent on the baby boomers who had a great ride with cheap energy, lifetime jobs. And affordable housing.
makati1 on Mon, 16th Jan 2017 8:50 pm
Dooma, I am 72, lived a fairly good life and enjoy good heath (so far). I am among the lucky ones who may get back the money I was forced to pay to Social Security over my almost 50 years of employment. But, I live in the Philippines so the medical benefits are not available to me. That is the price I pay to live here. No problem. Medical expenses here are a small fraction of those in the U$ and are equal or better than in the U$.
I can sympathize with you. I have daughters about your age who also will never benefit from their forced payments. I wish them (and you) well in the future. I cannot change it.
Dooma on Mon, 16th Jan 2017 9:02 pm
Thanks Mak. I visited the Philippines when I was working for an airline (cheap flights) for a 40th birthday and found the locals to be very hospitable and nothing was too much trouble. Also, there was a strong sense of community that people who have not been there will never understand.
makati1 on Mon, 16th Jan 2017 9:30 pm
Dooma, I’m glad you got to visit the Philippines recently. You pointed out two of the reasons I decided to move and stay here. So different than the US and Americans. Community and family is at the top of most Filipino’s list of what is important. Most Americans cannot understand / accept this. If you make the effort to be part of the community you become “family”.
Apneaman on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 2:45 am
Doug Stanhope Incentive Based Eugenics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcRRNvTof48&feature=youtu.be
Cloggie on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 3:14 am
The best thing would be to have a global birthrate of 1.0, for every country, continent and religious group, for the rest of the century. That would reduce the population from 7 to below 1 billion people, a blessing if there ever was one. The West comes closest to that ideal, but not so the countries of the south. The consequence of that development is that European civilization in Europe, Russia and America is going to be wiped out unless we apply resolute measures. The God-Emperor will no doubt construct the wall he promised to his desperate electorate. In Europe we still have leaders who think that George Soros is still in charge in the US and continue to act like that, but they will be removed from power by an seething angry population.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZiWFDDw5Yw
(German justice minister kicked out of East-German town by angry population)
The Eastern European regimes fell five years after Gorbachev rose to power declaring the end of old-school Soviet-Union.
The Western European regimes will fall probably earlier than 2022 now that Trump has in his turn announced the end of old-school Americanism and stop conquering the rest of the world.
What we in America and Europe need are walls and military means like navies to keep the de facto enemy from the South out and from overrunning us. This entire Christian attitude that we should keep playing Albert Schweizer and save every soul as if this was still the f* 19th/20th century, that attitude has to go. We owe it to our children. Once our borders are secured (mostly a task of changing mentality, the defense is very easy), we can force China to team up with us and enter Africa and de facto colonize the joint again and elevate their standards of living in return for birth control. You want these solar panels mr Kwumbala? Here is a note for the hospital, it will only take 15 minutes and won’t hurt. If you show us the note with a stamp you can get the panels for free.
If we don’t do this, every form of higher civilization will be wiped out from the face of this earth by stupid IQ70 high performance breeders. Christianity needs to go or we will.
peakyeast on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 4:12 am
The funny thing with humans is that racial hygiene is SOO important to all the species we abuse – even necessary… But not humans – and yes we are selfabusive.
Humans are perfect – People are not even allowed to PAY to try to get better by DNA manipulation or egg / sperm selection. That is how perfect humans are…
Talking about the splinter in the eye!!
Antius on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 5:21 am
Wow. Cloggie said something I agree with 🙂
Davy on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 5:35 am
Back in the eighties I was a globalist. I spent years in Europe. I read the Economist heavily. I believed in sustainable development. I knew about peak oil and climate change but they appeared to be a generation or two away. I was a techno optimist believing we would power our way through somehow.
I changed in mid-90’s. I moved to rural Missouri and started part time farming. I was a full time Finance guy but not by choice. My goal was to get enough money to get out. I eventually got out and here I am. Since 2004 I have been a dedicated doomer and prepper doing small farming and permaculture. I am now in a rural southern Missouri doing goat/cow permaculture. This is a management intensive grass grazing system. I live a simple life close to the land by choice and it is my passion.
I told you that story so you would see that there was a point where I believed in immigration because I was a globalist. I am not a racist and I do not subscribe to whites are better than people of color. We all have gifts and talents. Whites of the developed world are the reason for planetary destruction. Europe should be lynched for this horrible crime. I will pardon them because they did not know better. I would be part of the lynching because Americans are a bastard child of Europe. I am fine with immigration in a world not in overshoot and planetary decline. We are in a destroyed world in overpopulation stop kidding yourself about a one world kumbaya. Bad shit is coming so hard choices are in order.
I am now locally focused. I do not want more people around here. If I could I would elect someone to pay people to leave. I want Trump to build a wall. Anyone but criminals who are here now are to be welcomed. Anyone else needs to have money to get in. I say this not because these people are better but because it will reduce the amount of people coming in. These people often leave later.
We are in overshoot from population and consumption in the US. We probably can’t do much about consumption dependence but we can limit population growth by strong immigration action. This country will fail but let’s allow this failure to be less severe. Less population is part of that process of less pain, suffering, and death in the coming rebalance of modern man.
Within our borders I am all for voluntary segregation. This forced integration is wrong. There should be respect for other ethnicities but let’s stop this forced assimilation. Races and cultures need a certain degree of space. I see this on my farm with natural ecosystems. I have seen invasive species take over and destroy balance. We need to reduce our population from 330MIL to 100MIL or less and soon. Immigration is not going to allow this. We are a multicultural society lets learn to allow cultures to live together with good fences as our population declines. Places of mixing are fine. It is the attitudes that integration is the only way forward to a new world order needs to change. Racial problems are going to be one of our biggest challenges so let’s start adapting now.
Hello on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 5:45 am
islam is not a religion. It’s worjhipping that rapist/murderer mohhamed. What a fuck.
Good luck to europe. 10% of those retards. The US is also approaching pain levels.
Cloggie on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 6:46 am
Was a globalist until ca. 2001. As a student without much money to spend I was green-left, now with 300k euro (paid-off real estate), financially independent and grey hair, I’m green-right.
Saw the first black person in my life in perhaps 1965, Eddy from our Suriname colony, he didn’t feel too happy with all these blond kids around at my primary school. Today in Amsterdam there are schools where you really have to look good to find a blond kid.
Remember sitting in one of the first Italian restaurants in my town, end seventies with my leftist student friends and hearing myself saying “maybe multiculturalism isn’t such a bad idea”. A freaking Italian restaurant.lol
After completing my study, Europe was in a process of opening up and it became ever easier of working abroad. Certainly as an IT-freelancer, the road was paved with gold, especially in Germany and Switzerland where I was most during the nineties. Was a yuppie with 6 figure turnover in those days (guilders/D-Mark). In 1995 I visited the beaches of Normandy for a week to celebrate the “liberation”. Churchill was still a hero of mine. I cared ever less about Holland and ever more about Europe.
In 2001 everything changed. Was working in Munich for a big bank when on September 11, at around 16:00 everybody began pressing F5 on news sites. I took two days off and watched television without interruption in trance. Unlike Donald Trump…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weNhSOMRiLc
…who as a property developer immediately understood what had happened, I was foolish enough to believe the official story for another 4 years, until thanks to the internet I understood it was a CIA-Mossad inside job, exactly as Italian ex-president and terrorism-expert Cosiga had said it was.
That was the first time I became aware that the world of Islam could become a real enemy for us (but in hindsight not because of 9/11). A few months later we in Holland had the killing of Dutch nationalist Pim Fortuyn, who almost had become PM, no doubt on orders of the Dutch deep state and subservient to the CIA, that wants globalism and not nationalism. Fortuyn was the first who broke the cordon of political correctness (essentially American imposed Jewish Sharia). Here the reaction of desperate ordinary Dutch people, hours after the hit, the Dutch equivalent of the JFK murder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYV0hz4dquE
Note the glee of the Muslim scum at the end of the video.
Earlier I had to travel to The Hague to renew my passport for yet another yuppie five star holiday at the other side of the globe. Since I hadn’t been in the West of the Netherlands for at least a decade, I was shocked to find myself in the giant The Hague town hall in the midst of a sea of head scarfs, very threatening indeed, certainly after 9/11 (now I know these Allah bots can only kill 100 people max at a time with guns or trucks; they are too stupid to organize a 9/11). In a matter of a few years I turned from liberal yuppie into a right-winger. In 2003, with enough money in my pocket, I spend more than an entire year writing thousands of posts on nationalist Pim Fortuyn forums. Began to listen to American right-wing pod-casts and sites (ihr.org) and read everything on history. Read all three books by Kevin MacDonald. Churchill no longer was a hero. In 2005 discovered Heinberg and rediscovered my pre-yuppie interest in renewable energy and Club of Rome, but unlike many posters here never was fully absorbed by their story and always kept an interest in “saving European civilization”, which leads to (inaccurate) “troll”-accusations by some here.
JuanP on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 7:35 am
I couldn’t get past the first sentence. Anyone who thinks they can forecast with a fair degree of certainty what the planet’s population will be in 2050 is an ignorant fool.
I wish we could all be happy with no more than one kid and get sterilized, but It is not going to happen. We will continue destroying the biosphere until we go extinct. We can’t help what we are. And, no, whites are not better than reds, blacks, browns or yellows. Most white people are a bunch of ignorant fools, too. Whites are more responsible for this mess than all the rest. A bunch of murderers and thieves is what we whites are.
joe on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 7:47 am
We assume then that we will have found the 4 Saudi Arabias of oil we need to make this projection come true?
We will wait and see.
Cloggie on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 8:10 am
Whites are more responsible for this mess than all the rest. A bunch of murderers and thieves is what we whites are.
Or the creators of a society that was too good to be true.
Kenz300 on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 9:29 am
Birth Control Options: Pictures, Types, Side Effects, Costs, & Effectiveness
http://www.webmd.com/sex/birth-control/ss/slideshow-birth-control-options?ecd=wnl_day_010817&ctr=wnl-day-010817_nsl-ld-stry&mb=dtfWIHfXZxtqE9pudELmLeHnVev1imbCq%2f0xB3s74mA%3d
GregT on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 10:38 am
“Or the creators of a society that was too good to be true.”
By killing other peoples, and stealing their resources, no doubt.
Sissyfuss on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 11:09 am
We are on the road to no where. Or to paraphrase the book, ” what profits a man that he gains the riches of the world while losing the very thing that gives him life?”
penury on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 11:31 am
At this point “what difference does it make?”Every week or sometimes every day it is possible to find dueling forecasts for future whatever, kost of them are worth what you pay to view them, even if it is just for the comedy of reading peoples dreams of the future.
Cloggie on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 11:59 am
By killing other peoples, and stealing their resources, no doubt.
One clearly has to distinguish between the creative abilities of one group and the power hungry motivations of another group.
GregT on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 1:33 pm
Those two groups are not mutually exclusive Cloggie. They have a symbiotic relationship.
Cloggie on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 1:42 pm
They have a symbiotic relationship.
Some are more symbiotic than others:
http://finbuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/goldman-sachs-logo.jpg
http://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2014/01/auschwitz-entrance-P.jpeg
GregT on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 2:01 pm
I would consider those to be parasitic.
This is more along the lines of the symbiotic relationship between one group’s creative abilities, and another group’s power hungry motivations. Plenty of examples of this throughout history.
http://tinyurl.com/z3duq8l
Cloggie on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 2:11 pm
This is more along the lines of the symbiotic relationship between one group’s creative abilities, and another group’s power hungry motivations. Plenty of examples of this throughout history.
Los Alamos, hmmm… all the grand names, every single one of them…
Albert Einstein
Leo Szilard
Wigner
J. Robert Oppenheimer
David Bohm
Rudolf Peierls
Otto Frisch
Felix Bloch
Niels Bohr
Otto Hahn
Edward Teller
“Manhattan Project”… wonder why they gave the nuke project that name…
Since it is not possible to put more misery in a single m3, it is not difficult to hunt down who really developed that doomsday weapon, the ultimate power tool for those who pursue absolute power.
peakyeast on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 2:38 pm
We not only need four new 4 saudi arabias extra in 2050.
We need:
1. New oceans filled with fish.
2. New rainforests filled with animals to cut down, burn and eat.
3. New unpolluted ecosystems.
4. Oh yeah – and a new North and Southpole to go.
peakyeast on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 4:15 pm
@Keith: Have no worries – none of the readers here would have visited your site anyway. There are no losses incurred beyond those people you have just alienated with your pettiness.
Apneaman on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 6:39 pm
If your a CANCER and you know it…….
Humans have destroyed 7% of Earth’s pristine forest landscapes just since 2000
“Using satellite data, the researchers investigated changes to the world’s intact forest landscapes between 2000 and 2013. In 2000, they found that intact forest landscapes covered a total global area of 12.8 million square kilometers, or nearly 5 million square miles. But in the years since, human activities have altered and fragmented many of these areas.”
“The rate at which these losses are happening is speeding up, the study suggests. The researchers found that the rate of reductions to intact forest landscapes between 2011 and 2013 was triple the rate between 2001 and 2003.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/01/13/humans-have-destroyed-7-percent-of-earths-pristine-forest-landscapes-just-since-2000/
makati1 on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 8:32 pm
In other ‘news’…
“The World’s Most – And Least – Miserable Countries in 2016”
Most miserable: Venezuela (#1)
Least miserable: Japan (#59)
Next least miserable: China (#58)
US: (#39) Between New Zealand and Vietnam
Ps: (#37) Between Vietnam and Norway.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-16/world%E2%80%99s-most-%E2%80%93-and-least-%E2%80%93-miserable-countries-2016
Interesting that 5 of the top 10 least miserable countries are Asian.
Hubert on Wed, 18th Jan 2017 3:39 am
Oil Apocalypse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2qVquAeEBs