Census Update: What the World Will Look like in 2050 Here is the world in 2050, as imagined by the U.S. Census Bureau: India will be the most populous nation, surpassing China sometime around 2025. The U.S. will remain exactly where it is now: in third place, with a population of 423 million (up from 308 million in 2010). And declining birth rates in two of the world's most economically and politically influential countries, Japan and Russia, will cause them to fall from their current positions as the 9th and 10th most populous nations, respectively, to 16th and 17th. The findings are the result of population estimates and projections of 228 countries compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau's International Data Base (IDB). They offer a revealing look into the future. "One of the biggest changes we've seen has been the decline in fertility in some developed countries such as China," says Loraine West , an IDB project manager, "while others are experiencing a slight increase." In other words, China's population boom is finally slowing down while Western Europe's long-declining birth rate is - in some places, at least - rising again. Spain and Italy are "on an uptick," says West, "but how high will [the birth rate] rise? Or will it simply fluctuate up and down on some long term level? We'll have to see." According to Italy's The National Institute of Statistics, the country's recent population increase can be largely attributed to its own immigrant population. See TIME's "Intelligent Cities.") The two countries on track to make the biggest population gains are Nigeria and Ethiopia. Nigeria currently boasts 166 million people, but by 2050 its population is expected jump to 402 million. Ethiopia's population will likely triple from 91 million to 278 million, bringing the east African nation into the one of the top 10 most populous countries in the world for the first time. In fact, according to the United Nations Population Division, although only 18% of the world's population lives in so-called "high-fertility" countries (places where women have more than 1.5 daughters on average), most of those countries are in Africa; the continent is expected to experience significant population growth in the coming decades, which could compound the already-dire food supply issues in some African nations. While the U.S. appears relatively stable - it's the only country in the top 10 whose ranking is not expected to change in the next 40 years - previous census reports have highlighted dramatic demographic shifts within the country's borders. Last week, the Census Bureau announced that more than half of children under two in the U.S. are ethnic minorities. Add to that the non-Hispanic white population's increasing age (in California, for example, the median age for non-Hispanic whites is almost 10 years older than that of the state as a whole) and America in 2050 will look a lot different than the America we know today. (See TIME's video: 10 Questions for Robert Groves.) Perhaps the most unfortunate change is the one currently experienced by Russia. The cold, vast country has been undergoing steady depopulation since 1992 and the U.S. Census Bureau expects it to decline further, from 139 million people to 109 million by 2050. That's a 21% drop, even more than country suffered during World War II. Like many countries, Russia is experiencing declining birth rates, but it's also suffering form a relatively low life expectancy. According to the World Health Organization, Russian men have a life expectancy of just 62 years, a fact that is often attributed to the country's high rate of alcoholism and poor diet. (For comparison, Japan is also struggling with depopulation, but the World Health Organization puts its life expectancy at 80 for men and 86 for women). So what does this mean? The U.S. is not yet experiencing the kind of population decline that Europe experienced in the 1990s and 2000s, although immigration and differing birth rates among races means that the country's ethnic composition is changing. Something similar will be going on in the rest of the world, as well: Africa and India's boom, Russia's decline and China's expected plateau (holding steady around 1.3 billion people between now and 2050) will change the makeup of the estimated 9.4 billion people who will call Earth home in 2050. The future, it seems, is not as distant as we think.
HSBC sees China and America leading global mega-boom In a report entitled "The World in 2050", HSBC said China at $24.6 trillion and the U.S. at $22.3 trillion will together tower over the global economy. An eightfold jump in the per capita income of China and India will keep growth brisk despite demographic headwinds, but they will not come to close to matching U.S. living standards. Americans will be three times richer than the Chinese in 2050.
2050 Prediction - USA will have the highest GDP per capita: $138,267 In 2050, United States will be the only country in the Western world to stay relevant. Its influence will actually increase in the world economy. The high-tech future that everyone envisions will be what the U.S. looks like. It will have such a good quality of life that poverty in the U.S. will be considered rich to the rest of the world. People will be immigrating to the U.S. like crazy to get a job and live the life here. This will be one of the only developed countries to have a fertility rate at replacement level, meaning that it will have a constant workforce looking ahead.
The reason in part the United States became a superpower was because we had more jobs and resources than we had numbers as a population to exhaust our abundant economic largess. When this nation's population exceeded 300 mil, that wealth began to decline and become more stratified between the uber-rich and the working poor. At the 400 million mark, the United States will no longer be an economic superpower and will only be a global player because of the size of its military and its nuclear arsenal. At 400 million citizens, getting into a 4-year college will be on par with winning the lottery, and competition for White collar jobs will nearly become a bloodsport. THe middle class will nearly become extinct and Washington, D.C. will relocate to Houston Street in Manhattan. Not fun. About time to hit the re-set button on the U.S. of A.:smt067
The Top 10 Largest Economies in the World in 2050 Germany and U.K. will fall off the top ten by 2050. African country, Nigeria, will make it to the top ten.
