The Next America
America is in the midst of two major changes to its population: We are becoming majority non-white at the same time a record share is going gray. Explore these shifts in our new interactive data essay.
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Although the population in the U.S. is getting older and growing more slowly than in the past, the demographic future for the U.S. is robust in comparison with other countries. In particular, the U.S. population is projected to grow faster and age slower than the populations of its major economic partners in Europe and Asia. […]
The trends in population growth and aging in the countries included in this report reflect the trends for the regions in which they are located. In all major regions of the world, the population of seniors is growing faster than the populations of other age groups and the median age is on the rise. But […]
The demographic future for the U.S. and the world looks very different than the recent past in key respects. Growth from 1950 to 2010 was rapid—the global population nearly tripled, and the U.S. population doubled. However, population growth from 2010 to 2050 is projected to be significantly slower and is expected to tilt strongly to […]
The aging of populations raises concerns about the affordability of publicly funded pension and health care programs in the future. Many developed economies already expend a sizable share of their GDP on these programs. For example, public expenditures on pensions and health care currently consume about 13% of GDP in the U.S. and in excess […]
Beard, John R., Simon Biggs, David E. Bloom, Linda P. Fried, Paul Hogan, Alexandre Kalache and S. Jay Olshansky, eds. Global Population Ageing: Peril or Promise? Geneva: World Economic Forum (2011). Bloom, David E., David Canning and Günther Fink. “Implications of Population Aging for Economic Growth,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 16705 […]