Two New Reports Reveal a World That Is Still Growing — and Aging

Two new reports have offered a revealing look at where world population is headed. In An Aging World: 2025, Rachel Bacon, Daniel Goodkind, Paul Kowal, Anne Morse, and Mitali Sen of the U.S. Census Bureau examine a world that is both growing and aging. In Terra Incognita: The Economics of a Shrinking World, Jesús Fernández-Villaverde of the University of Pennsylvania and Patrick Norrick of Northwestern University argue that global fertility is likely already below replacement. Taken together, their findings make one point clear: falling fertility does not erase the population growth still ahead.

The Census Bureau estimates that “the world population is projected to increase in size by more than 2 billion people between 2025 and 2060.”¹ The age of those additional people is especially striking: more than half of the projected increase — 1.148 billion people — will be among adults aged 65 and older. Yet fertility is falling across much of the world. The report notes that in 2023, more than 71 percent of the world’s population was already living in societies with fertility at or below replacement levels.²

How can both be true?

As Fernández-Villaverde and Norrick put it, “This astonishing fact does not mean that population has stopped growing.”³ Large generations born in earlier decades are still having children and living longer. The authors expect world population to keep growing for roughly another 30 years, even if fertility remains low. They also acknowledge an important opportunity: “Slower population growth eases pressure on infrastructure, housing, and emissions.”⁴

The question, then, is how best to prepare for this transition. Billions more people and a growing older population will require thoughtful planning for housing, health care, infrastructure, and natural resources. NPG believes policies that respond to changing population needs can also help realize the benefits of slower growth: easing pressure on communities while protecting the environment and improving quality of life.

Notes:

1. U.S. Census Bureau, An Aging World: 2025, p. 10.
2. Ibid., pp. 10, 2.
3. Fernández-Villaverde and Norrick, Terra Incognita, p. 2.
4. Ibid., p. 4.