Our Future Is a Graying Planet, Not an Overcrowded One

Our Future Is a Graying Planet, Not an Overcrowded One
People crowd a marketplace in Mumbai, India, April 24, 2023 (AP photo by Rajanish Kakade).

Of all the doomsday predictions about our planetary future from the 1960s and 1970s, perhaps none was so comically off the mark as the widespread fear about overpopulation. The dystopian portrayals of out-of-control population growth outstripping the planet’s ability to sustain human life made for good sci-fi movies; “Soylent Green” comes to mind. But the exponential expansion of the planet’s human population never materialized.

In fairness, making predictions is always a hazardous undertaking. And many of the other gloomy projections from that time were more prescient, particularly with regard to environmental degradation. But when it comes to human demographics, the reality has proven to be just as alarming, if for the opposite reason: In every region of the world except Africa, population levels have begun to level off due to declining birthrates, with some countries—like China—experiencing population decline and others bracing for it.

And because much of the population increases of recent years can be attributed to increased life expectancy due to advances in health and nutrition, instead of an overcrowded planet, what lies ahead for most of the world is a graying planet, as the demographic balance begins to tilt toward aging populations.

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article by submitting your email address below. You'll also get access to three articles of your choice each month and our free newsletter:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having a personal curator and expert analyst of global affairs news. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to the full searchable library of tens of thousands of articles.
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday.
  • Regular in-depth articles with deep dives into important issues and countries.
  • The Daily Review email, with our take on the day’s most important news, the latest WPR analysis, what’s on our radar, and more.
  • The Weekly Review email, with quick summaries of the week’s most important coverage, and what’s to come.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.

More World Politics Review