- About 1 in 3 people live where adults 65 and older outnumber children under 15.
- Low fertility is widespread with more than 70% of people in countries with below-replacement rates.
- The world is still projected to grow, reaching about 9.6 billion people by 2050.
More than 2.8 billion people — roughly a third of the world’s population — live in communities where older adults outnumber children younger than 15. There are more older adults than kids in 55 countries and territories — including Japan, and parts of Europe, the United States, China and Thailand.
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And low fertility has even greater reach, with more than 70% of the world population living in 121 countries and territories where fertility is at or below replacement level of 2.1 births per woman.
That’s according to the 2026 World Population Data Sheet and Data Explorer, created by the Population Reference Bureau, a nonpartisan nonprofit in Washington, D.C., that specializes in analyzing global demographic data.
Below-replacement fertility, however, does not mean that the population is shrinking. The global population is expected to rise from 8.2 billion in 2026 to 9.6 billion by 2050. Nearly 1 in 4 are under age 15, while 1 in 10 are at least 65 years old.
Jennifer Sciubba, the bureau’s president and CEO, said during a media briefing Tuesday, there is no single global population story. While most of the world is trending toward lower fertility, each country is in a different place on its own population path.
Similar fertility rates, different paths
In India, Mexico and the Philippines, for example, “large numbers of young people entering childbearing ages can sustain population growth even after fertility falls below replacement level,” per the report. And it’s also true that “immigration can offset population losses when deaths exceed births, while emigration can drive population declines even when births exceed deaths.”
Toshiko Kaneda, the bureau’s senior technical director, said that countries have different age structures and migration patterns. While folks pay attention to fertility, that alone doesn’t tell the story. In some countries, including Germany and Spain, birth rates peak in women’s 30s, while Colombia and Thailand have peak births in women’s 20s. But they have similar low birth rates.
Those differences make it vital to collect reliable demographic data regularly. She called that an important part of “public infrastructure,” Kaneda said.
Sciubba added that “reliable, comparable data help leaders plan for those different realities and give the public a way to hold them accountable.”
Strained data collection systems
The group emphasized that systems that produce that reliable data “face growing strain.” In the U.S. for instance, since January 2025, all 13 of the nation’s primary statistical agencies have cut staff and six have lost one-third or more of their workforce.
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Internationally, changes in development funding have hampered international data collection and while some has resumed, “the fragility of these systems must still be addressed,” as a bureau news release put it.
Kaneda added that all predictions and estimates are by their nature based on assumptions. And assumptions are not always right, so it’s important to know what those assumptions are and use up-to-date information when assessing data trends.
The U.S. and world at a glance
Asked if lower fertility is a “problem,” Kaneda said it can pose challenges, such as fewer young people to support the increasing number of older adults who rely on social programs. That’s a worry in the U.S., as Deseret News has previously reported.
The reference bureau staffers told reporters that the U.S. is on a trajectory to have more deaths than births in a given year if trends continue, though it’s hard to say when that point will arrive. Mark Mather, the bureau’s associate vice president, noted that if deaths consistently exceed births, net immigration would be needed for the U.S. population to keep growing.
Four countries will see about 40% of global population growth between 2026 and 2050. India, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo combined will add about 571 million people based on the projections. The 10 countries with the greatest growth will contribute 63% of global growth.
The United States has both a growing population of older adults and below-replacement fertility, at an average of 1.6 births per woman. Adults 65 and older account for 19% of the population, while 17% are younger than 15. So while the population is projected to grow from 343.6 million in 2026 to 360.6 million in 2050, this country is what the report calls “an aging United States.”
The U.S. trails the European Union in life expectancy at 81 years for women and 77 for men. In the EU, life expectancy is 84 years for women and 79 for men.
Incomes, however, are higher in the U.S. with the gross national income per person, adjusted for differences in purchasing power, at $89,490 compared to $65,150 in the EU.
The report also looked at gender equality in political and workforce participation. The entire report — and a “Data Explorer” are available online.
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