Census Bureau Report: People 65 and Older Now Outnumber Young Children Worldwide for the First Time

The U.S. Census Bureau, working with demographers from Australian National University, released a report on Aug. 31 documenting a demographic first: the global population of people aged 65 and older has overtaken the population of children aged five and under. "This is the first time this 'crossing' of the youngest and oldest age groups has happened in human history and is projected to drastically widen in the coming years," the report's authors wrote, according to the Epoch Times.

The numbers are stark. The report projects the global 65-and-older population will nearly double from about 852 million in 2025 to roughly 2 billion by 2060, according to figures cited by both the Epoch Times and Newsbytes App. That growth alone will account for 55% of all net global population growth over that period, Axios reported, as cited by Newsbytes App. Meanwhile the under-19 population is projected to stay essentially flat.

The cause isn't complicated. Roughly 71% of the world's population now lives in countries with fertility rates at or below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman, up from 45% a decade ago, according to the report as cited by the outlet matr. That includes China and India, two of the most populous countries on Earth. Add longer life expectancy on top of that, and the math does the rest.

Ground News, which aggregated coverage across 48 outlets, reported the actual crossover year as 2023, while the Epoch Times and Newsbytes App described the shift as having occurred "by 2025." The underlying Census Bureau report appears to place the structural tipping point in 2023, with 2025 serving as the reference year for the report's snapshot data. Readers should treat the 2023 date as the actual crossover and 2025 as the year the data was measured and published.

Who's Aging Fastest

Japan is currently the oldest country in the world, with roughly three in 10 residents aged 65 or older, according to the Epoch Times. But South Korea is on track to take that title. The Korea Herald's editorial board notes Korea entered "super-aged" status in late 2024, when seniors hit 20% of the population, and its senior share is projected to reach 41% by 2060, the highest of any major economy on Earth.

The Korea Herald lays out the fiscal math behind that number: the old-age dependency ratio in Korea stood at 29.5 elderly people for every 100 working-age adults last year. By 2060, that ratio is projected to hit 81.6, meaning just 1.2 working-age Koreans for every senior. Korea's elderly poverty rate was 40.5% in 2020, the highest in the OECD, though the OECD has since revised that estimate down to 39.7%.

The United States is comparatively young by global standards, ranking 48th oldest out of 227 countries in 2025, with 18.9% of its population 65 or older, according to the Epoch Times and Newsbytes App. That share is projected to climb to 23.4% by 2060. But because other nations are aging faster, the U.S. is projected to fall to 110th place in the global rankings by then. Separately, Ground News reports Census Bureau projections showing Americans 65 and older will outnumber children under 18 nationally for the first time in 2029, just three years from now.

The Policy Argument, From Both Sides

South Korea has tried cash payments to new parents to reverse the trend, according to the Epoch Times, with limited results so far given the country's continued fertility decline. The Korea Herald's editorial board argues the answer isn't just more parental subsidies but structural reform: ending seniority-based pay that pushes out older workers, shifting toward task-based compensation, and investing in automation and robotics so a shrinking workforce doesn't mean a shrinking economy. A country doesn't have to choose between an aging population and rising output per worker if it retools how people work and how long they stay in the labor force.

On the U.S. side, Fox News aired commentary from Dr. Devi Nampiaparampil of Metropolis Pain Medicine, who framed the shift as a coming strain on healthcare systems and medical infrastructure built around a younger population.

None of this is reversible by 2029, when the U.S. hits its own crossover point. The open question is whether Washington treats this as Korea's editorial board frames it, an institutional redesign problem around pensions, labor markets and family formation costs, or waits for the dependency math to force the issue. The Census Bureau's own projections suggest waiting gets more expensive every year.