About 1 in 9 Americans are facing poverty today. But more than half of the people residing in the US will experience poverty at some point in their adult lives ..read more

The government has decided against including questions about sexuality and gender identity in the 2026 Census. How can it make policy for LGBTQI+ people without such basic data ..read more

For decades it seemed as if nothing could change the trajectory of population growth. But a huge change is looming ..read more

While the traditional two-parent two-child family might be the first to spring to mind, Australia’s families are varied. Policy should cater accordingly ..read more

The 2022 South African census set an undesirable record: it is the census with the highest undercount among those where the undercount is measured and reported by the United Nations Population Division. The reported undercount of 31% is some 10 percentage points higher than the previous highest notified undercount (in Comoros in 2017). While the results from the 2022 South African census, released in October 2023, were adjusted for the undercount, it means the results are more estimates than counts, producing a number of anomalies in the census data. These call their usefulness into question ..read more

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