Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are nearly twice the median age of the U.S. population. AP Photo In a recent poll, 67% of Americans surveyed believe that President Joe Biden, 81, is too old to serve another term as president. But only 41% of respondents said they feel that way about former President Donald Trump, who is 77. Both men have stumbled around and have forgotten or mixed up names and events, which are behaviors that characterize some older people. We are demographers – not scholars of brain function considering people’s cognitive abilities. But there is a question we can answer, one ..read more

sirtravelalot/Shutterstock The number of babies born in England and Wales in 2022 fell by 3.1% compared to the previous year. The average age of parents is also at a record high, as people choose to delay having children. The average age of mothers is now nearly 31. To some, this is alarming. MP Miriam Cates, for example, has written that “the economic consequences of this shift are mind blowing”. Worries about a low birthrate often include that there won’t be enough young people to support an ageing population through pensions and social care, or that a population decline will affect the econ ..read more

Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is growing three times faster than the rest of the world with an average of 4.6 births per woman in 2021. By comparison, the fertility rate in Canada was 1.3 births per woman in 2022. The region is projected to continue to be the fastest growing in the world, with a population increasing from 1.2 billion in 2021 to 2.1 billion in 2050. Sustained and rapid population growth has deep implications for development, exacerbating social, economic and environmental challenges from food insecurity and gender inequity to environmental degradation. At the same time, Sub-S ..read more

Young people – under the age of 15 – currently make up 29% of South Africa’s population. But this will soon change: the aged portion of the population is forecast to rise from 2030, bringing many challenges. Lauren Johnston, an economics and political economy expert, recently published a paper on the subject. We asked her to put the developments into perspective. What is South Africa’s current population profile? South Africa is “young” among the Brics countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), but “old” by African standards. For example, seniors make up 5.9% of South Africa’s population and ..read more

How school attendance zones are drawn can affect segregation. Ariel Skelley/DigitalVision Collection/Getty Images Brown vs. Board of Education, the pivotal Supreme Court decision that made school segregation unconstitutional, turns 70 years old on May 17, 2024. At the time of the 1954 ruling, 17 U.S. states had laws permitting or requiring racially segregated schools. The Brown decision declared that segregation in public schools was “inherently unequal.” This was, in part, because the court argued that access to equitable, nonsegregated education played a critical role in creating informed ci ..read more

President Cyril Ramaphosa congratulates the new leaders of the ANC in the Western Cape. Jaco Marais/Die Burger/Gallo Images via Getty Images The African National Congress (ANC), which governs South Africa, finally held its postponed Western Cape provincial elective congress in June. This was after painstaking years of electing branch and regional executives. The new executive is the first elected ANC Western Cape provincial executive in six years. These are among the first essential steps the ANC needed to take to be on a better footing to make gains in this province – the only one of nine it ..read more

Guineans living in Ivory Coast wait for their turn during a census on March 26, 2010 in Adjame, a popular district in Abidjan. SIA Kambou/AFP via Getty images West Africa, an area composed of 16 countries, is one of the fastest growing regions in the world. The region has a population of over 350 million, a five-fold increase since 1950 when 73 million people lived there. More than half of the population is under the age of 25. The region’s urban population rose from 8.3% of the total in 1950 to almost 44% in 2015. Population size, composition and distribution all have implications for what a ..read more

While blue, Democratic states are becoming bluer, red, Republican-leaning states are becoming more conservative. Matt Champlin The United States is an increasingly polarized country when it comes to politics – but one thing that almost all people want is to live a long, healthy life. More and more Americans are moving from Democratic-leaning blue states to Republican-voting red ones, and one of the effects of this change is that they are relocating to places with lower life expectancy. Idaho, Montana and Florida, all red states, had the greatest population growth among U.S. states between 2020 ..read more

Will an aging, shrinking population put the brakes on economic growth? CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images. Throughout much of recorded human history, China has boasted the largest population in the world – and until recently, by some margin. So news that the Chinese population is now in decline, and will sometime later this year be surpassed by that of India, is big news even if long predicted. As a scholar of Chinese demographics, I know that the figures released by Chinese government on Jan. 17, 2023, showing that for the first time in six decades, deaths in the previous year outnumber ..read more

More one-and-done families influence the overall birth rate. Maskot via Getty Images Birth rates are falling in the U.S. After the highs of the Baby Boom in the mid-20th century and the lows of the Baby Bust in the 1970s, birth rates were relatively stable for nearly 50 years. But during the Great Recession, from 2007-2009, birth rates declined sharply – and they’ve kept falling. In 2007, average birth rates were right around 2 children per woman. By 2021, levels had dropped more than 20%, close to the lowest level in a century. Why? Is this decline because, as some suggest, young people aren ..read more