Senior citizens now outnumber young children worldwide for the first time in human history, according to new US Census data.
The global tipping point arrived years ahead of projections, with people aged 65 and older surpassing children 5 and under at some point between 2020 and 2025, the report found. By 2025, seniors reached 10.5 percent of the world’s total population. Demographers had not expected this milestone so soon.
Fertility collapse drove the shift far more than forecast. Seventy-one percent of the world’s population now lives in countries with fertility rates at or below the roughly 2.1 births-per-woman replacement level, the study found. That share has exploded from just 43 percent in 2013. What was once a phenomenon confined to wealthy nations has gone global.
China, India, Bangladesh, Mexico, and Vietnam, five of the world’s most populous countries, all now register below-replacement birth rates. The demographic transformation is no longer restricted to the richest economies.
The United States currently ranks as the 48th oldest country globally, with 18.9 percent of its population aged 65 or older. That figure is projected to climb to 23.4 percent by 2060. Yet America’s relative position will plunge dramatically as other nations age faster, with its ranking predicted to fall to 110th by that same year.
The senior population is set to nearly triple in the coming decades. The number of people aged 65 and over is projected to grow from 852 million in 2025 to 2 billion in 2060, representing 55 percent of all net global population growth during that period. The world’s total population is expected to rise from 8.13 billion to 10.23 billion by 2060, meaning one in five people on Earth will be over 65.
Africa, still the youngest continent, will see its senior population more than quadruple, with a projected increase of 315 percent, from 60 million to 249 million, surpassing Europe’s 214 million by 2060. Latin America and the Caribbean will experience a 158 percent increase. Asia will see the largest numerical jump, with its population aged 65 and over forecast to rise from 487 million in 2025 to 1.24 billion by 2060.
The projected increase in the global 65-plus population between 2025 and 2060 stands at 134.7 percent overall.
This unprecedented expansion carries heavy consequences for social welfare systems. A shrinking working-age population will be called upon to support a ballooning proportion of retirees, straining public finances in country after country. While aging has long been viewed as primarily a North American and European problem, the developing world will face the starkest demographic pressures.
Higher life expectancies and the lifting of hundreds of millions out of poverty have massively expanded the over-65 population, compounding the effects of falling birth rates. The twin forces have reshaped humanity’s age structure with speed that caught experts off guard.
The Census Bureau’s full report on global aging trends is expected to inform policy discussions at upcoming international demographic conferences.