SOMETHING ELSE FOR EUROPEANS TO WORRY ABOUT:

Higher fertility rates and immigration produce not only a larger population but a society that is younger, more mixed ethnically and, on balance, more dynamic. The simplest expression of this is median age (by definition, half of the population is older than the median age, and half younger). According to Bill Frey, a demographer at the University of Michigan, the median age in America in 2050 will be 36.2. In Europe it will be 52.7. That is a stunning difference, accounted for almost entirely by the dramatic ageing of the European population. At the moment, the median age is 35.5 in America and 37.7 in Europe. In other words, the difference in the median age is likely to rise from two to 17 years by 2050.

Behind this change lie demographic patterns with big policy implications. The percentage of children in the population is falling as populations age. But in America it is falling more slowly than elsewhere. In 1985, America and Europe had more or less the same proportion of the population under 14 years of age: around 20%. By 2020, the proportion of children in Europe will have slumped to 13.7%. In America it will still be 18.6%—not only higher than in Europe but higher than in China and Japan, as well. . . .

Perhaps none of this is altogether surprising. The contrast between youthful, exuberant, multi-coloured America and ageing, decrepit, inward-looking Europe goes back almost to the foundation of the United States. But demography is making this picture even more true, with long-term consequences for America’s economic and military might and quite possibly for the focus of its foreign policy.

From The Economist, via The Sound and the Fury.