CONTRIBUTORS
Charity Chao Shete
Communications Officer
Diana Munjuri
Senior Communications Officer
For the first time in human history, we’re approaching a world where there will be more elderly people than children, a shift that’s happening faster than most governments are prepared to handle. This unprecedented demographic evolution continues to fascinate scientists and researchers, as it represents the complex interplay between socioeconomic development, environmental protection, health promotion, quality of life, and social stability. According to the UN, the world’s population will continue growing for the next 50 to 60 years, peaking at approximately 10.3 billion by the mid-2080s. After reaching this peak, it is expected to gradually decline to around 10.2 billion by the century’s end.
This global trend masks significant regional variations and concerning patterns. While major African countries exhibit upward population trajectories, developed nations such as Japan and Germany are experiencing rapid aging. By 2080, the United Nations estimates that the number of individuals aged 65 and older will surpass that of children under 18 globally, and by the mid-2030s, those aged 80 and over will outnumber infants. Currently, one in four people lives in a country where the population has already reached its peak.
The driving force behind this demographic shift is the decline in fertility rates worldwide. On average, women are bearing one child less than in 1990, resulting in a global fertility rate of 2.3 live births per woman as of 2024. These declining birth rates stem from various environmental and socio-economic factors, creating what the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)’s ‘State of World Population 2025’ report describes as alarm over “population collapse” in many countries.
This demographic challenge isn’t new to policymakers. In 1980, China implemented what was designed as a temporary measure to curb population growth—the one-child policy—to address social, environmental, and economic problems associated with rapid population expansion. Today, however, the concern has shifted in the opposite direction. Governments are now employing drastic measures to persuade women and young people to have more children, often assuming that young people are deliberately choosing smaller families and that women must be incentivized to make reproductive decisions aligned with national fertility targets. In countries like Kenya and the USA, where government leaders have publicly urged citizens to have more children, with the USA going a step further to ban abortion, the pressure to have more children is growing. However, many Americans view this move as a direct threat to their freedom of choice, a larger conversation that needs to be had.
Evidence shows that future population growth is highly dependent on the path that future fertility will take. The 2025 UNFPA report cites that the leading barrier to having children across all surveyed countries was financial: 39 percent of respondents said financial limitations had led, or would likely lead, to having fewer children than desired. Gender inequality also plays an outsized role in constraining choice: Women were nearly twice as likely as men (13 per cent compared with 8 per cent) to cite the unequal division of domestic labour as a factor in not reaching their fertility goals.
While many governments are looking for ways to incentivize higher birth rates, for many people it is restrictive policies, unaffordable healthcare and inequality that thwart their desire to have children. Persistent gender inequality has been linked to fertility decline in countries with sub-replacement fertility, for example. Same-sex couples and single people are often denied access to fertility services. And in sub-Saharan Africa, infertility is a significant, but neglected, barrier to desired parenthood. Yet rather than expanding choice, some policymakers are limiting it – in extreme cases, even restricting access to contraception in an attempt to sway birth rates.
These measures not only undermine the reproductive rights and agency of women and girls, they are also likely to be counterproductive. Policies that are coercive, or even perceived as coercive, can trigger unintended consequences as both women and men seek to assert their reproductive autonomy. In places where abortion is prohibited, for example, some have sought elective sterilization, while others have experienced secondary infertility as a consequence of unsafe abortion.
APHRC’s Response: Evidence-Based Research for Policy Action
This year’s World Population Day focus is on young families with the theme, “Empowering young people to create the families they want in a fair and hopeful world. The theme calls for ensuring youth have the rights, tools, and opportunities to shape their futures. At the Center, we are contributing to the growing body of knowledge on population through various research initiatives. Recognizing the importance of population studies and aligning our strategic objectives with the continent’s developmental priorities, APHRC’s Population Dynamics and Urbanization (PDU) theme conducts research across three critical areas. The theme explores aging and development by examining population aging dynamics and their impact on well-being, with a focus on adapting societal structures to support older populations. It examines urbanization and sustainability through migration patterns and the growth of informal settlements, providing evidence to inform policies for inclusive urban development. Additionally, our fertility research examines determinants of persistently high fertility rates in African contexts, investigating factors behind stalled declines and rapid demographic changes among specific population groups.
Within the Center’s Health and Wellbeing theme, we aim to promote the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental human right for all Africans, aligning with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals. Our overarching objective is to generate evidence, build research capacity, and influence health policy and practice across key areas, including nutrition and food systems, sexual and reproductive health, maternal and child health, chronic disease management, infectious diseases, and health systems strengthening.
The Countdown to 2030 Project: Tracking Progress and Driving Change
The Countdown to 2030 initiative represents a significant contribution to population research. This collaboration of academics from global, regional, and country institutions, UN agencies, the World Bank, and civil society organizations tracks progress of life-saving interventions for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Nutrition (RMNCAH+N).
Through this project, we are generating evidence to foster advocacy and accountability for the health of women, children, and adolescents. We analyze data on the coverage of health interventions across socioeconomic status, gender, education, and geography, as well as key drivers of change, including policy, finance, and other health system dimensions.
Our recently launched 2025 Lancet Countdown to 2030 report identifies a critical slowdown in progress on Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health and Nutrition (RMNCAH&N) during the first half of the Sustainable Development Goals era. To reverse this trend, the report recommends urgent and focused efforts across five priority areas: placing renewed focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, strengthening RMNCAH&N health systems, safeguarding gains amid crises, improving monitoring and accountability, and revitalizing political and financial commitment.
Building a Future That Works for All
We are in the midst of a significant demographic shift, and it requires more than reactive policies or coercive measures. It requires us to reconceptualize how we support human flourishing across all life stages. As fertility rates decline and populations age, we must create systems that honor reproductive choice while ensuring adequate support for families, robust care for aging populations, and sustainable development that can weather demographic transitions. Our demographic future is not predetermined—it will be shaped by the choices we make today about how to support human dignity, health, and well-being for all.