Further
facts
People and money
- “Global population growth is decelerating, but it will still increase by approx. 2 billion until peaking at approx. 9 million around year 2050. The largest growth will be in Africa (+93%), and the Middle East plus Turkey (+60%). Somewhat slower growth will be seen in India (+33%), North America (+28%) and Latin America (+24%). Western Europe and China will have roughly unchanged population by 2050. Eastern Europe including Russia plus Japan will see their populations declines by approx. 18-20%.
- Approx. 80% of the increase in the world population until 2050 will be of people over 60. This increase in elderly equals approx. 1.6 times the entire population in all developed nations today. Approx. 90% of this “greying” will be in emerging markets.
- The global urban population will grow by 3 billion from 2010 to 2050. Meanwhile, the global rural population will decline by 1 billion, and many villages and country houses will get deserted as a consequence.
- Global life expectancy will grow approx. 2.5 years per decade, meaning 10 years from 2010 to 2050. In Europe and North America, life expectancy will probably rise by around 6-7 years during the period, whereas it will be around 10 years in Asia and in some poorer countries it will be much more. However, towards the end of the period, it will start to accelerate in some countries, as age prevention becomes an information technology through use of advanced biotech and genomics. This may eventually take average lifespan towards perhaps 150 years or longer in the coming century.
- Global GDP will grow approx. 400% in real terms from 2010 to 2050, with average real income per capita in developed countries typically rising 2-300% against a whooping 4-600% in developing counties such as China, India, Brazil, Russia and the “next 11”. The economic expansion in emerging markets will exceed the total current size of the six largest economies already by 2030.
- By 2050, the majority of current emerging market citizens will enjoy living standards similar to – or higher than – average OECD lifestyles today. The world will be very rich. As a part of this transition, the global middle class will increase by 70-90 million people a year.
- China will initially be the world’s growth engine. It will also become the largest economy globally before year 2040, but from around that time, India will take over as the biggest contributor to global economic expansion, due to superior demographics.
- However, there is today approx. 1 billion people within 50-60 nations (the so-called “Bottom billion”), who missed the train on globalization. The economies of many of these poor nations will continue to stagnate or even contract economically. These are predominantly located in Africa and the Middle East.
- Many developed countries will lack savings to pay for the retirement booms. Several of those may go through acute debt crises.”
