Foreign Policy Magazine

HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU, 2050

How a less Christian Europe, an aging population in the West, and the empowerment of women are going to shape the future.

THE 21ST CENTURY is still just a teenager, but we can already forecast with a fair degree of confidence what its demographic profile will look like by 2050.

Population growth will have slowed down. Global aging will have risen to unprecedented levels. Birthrates will drop. The working-age share of the world’s population will shrink. Poverty will ameliorate in poor countries; income inequality will worsen in wealthy ones. And for the first time ever, Islam will challenge Christianity as the world’s largest religion.

What’s notable about these disparate trends is how much they are interrelated. They’re

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Foreign Policy Magazine

Foreign Policy Magazine2 min readPolitical Ideologies
From The Editor
2024 IS THE YEAR OF A RARE PLANETARY ALIGNMENT. The world’s biggest democracy, which has parliamentary elections every five years, will go to the polls within months of the world’s second-biggest democracy, which has a presidential vote every four ye
Foreign Policy Magazine7 min readInternational Relations
The World Won’t Be the Same After the Israel-Hamas War
Will the latest Gaza war have far-reaching repercussions? As a rule, adverse geopolitical developments are usually balanced by countervailing forces of various kinds, and events in one small part of the world tend not to have vast ripple effects else
Foreign Policy Magazine1 min read
Insightful Analysis Of Global Affairs Deserves To Be Shared.
Save time and money with consolidated billing, easy management of users, and volume discounts Sharing made easy with unrestricted access across platforms Ability to integrate with almost any database, search engine, or preferred workflow Stay focused

Related Books & Audiobooks