Non-Profit Trusted Source of Non-Commercial Health Information
The Original Voice of the American Academy of Anti-Aging, Preventative, and Regenerative Medicine
logo logo
Demographics & Statistics

For The First Time In American History The Old Will Outnumber Young

5 years, 4 months ago

13386  0
Posted on Nov 30, 2018, 3 p.m.

Statistics can be powerful, and are a description of who we are as a country. For the first time in an aging American history older people will outnumber children by 2030 as all babyboomers will be older than age 65 making 1 in 5 Americans of retirement age.

According to the US Census Bureau’s revised projections deaths will rise substantially between 2020-2050 making the population grow slowly. Projections reveal that the USA will become more racially and ethnically diverse with the country’s population of mixed raced children set to double. Non-Hispanic White-alone population is projected to shrink from 199 million in 2020 to 179 million in 2060.

By 2060 the population is projected to grow by 79 million from about 326 million today to 404 million, and is projected to cross the 400 million mark by 2058. In the coming years the rate of population growth is projected to slow to about 2.3 million a year until 2030, then numbers are projected to decline on average 1.9 million per year between 2030-2040, and continue to fall to 1.6 million until 2060.

Ratio of older adults to working age adults is projected to rise by 2020 there will be 3.5 working adults for every adult of retirement age. By 2060 that ratio will fall to 2.5 working for every 1 retired. By 2035 there will be 78 million people over the age of 65 compared to 76.7 million under the age of 18 in an aging America.

Births are projected to be 4 times larger than migration, by 2020 less than half of the children in the USA are expected to by non-Hispanic white alone of the projected 74 million, about 72% of children are projected to be white alone regardless of Hispanic origin. Children of two or more races are projected to more than double from 5.3% today to 11.3% in 2060. Racial and ethnic composition of younger birth cohorts is expected to change more quickly than older cohorts, by 2060 over one third of children are projected to be non-Hispanic white alone compared with over one half of older adults, which translates to a more diverse population.

WorldHealth Videos