What Happens When the World’s Population Stops Growing?

When Eloundou-Enyegue thinks about the coming demographic shifts, he also wonders how they will alter the world’s cultural centers of gravity. “Because the young shape a lot of the large segments of the culture—let’s say, artistic culture, or sports culture—it would be interesting to see where most of the young people [will be],” he says. According to his calculations based on the UN’s data, the proportion of all humans on Earth under the age of 25 who live in Asia will drop from 56 to 37 percent between next year and 2100. Meanwhile, Africa’s share of the global population of young people will shoot up, from 25 to 48 percent. (The proportion living in the rest of the world will not fluctuate much.)