Is aging killing the developed world? Demographic nightmare?

I did a little work using Claude. Globally things don't look that bad. This is because Africa and India are cranking out kids (which helps round out the numbers)

The chart draws on UN World Population Prospects 2024 data and projections. A few things stand out:

The most dramatic shift is in the over-65 cohort, which roughly doubles from about 8% in 2010 to nearly 17% by 2050 — a consequence of aging baby boomers in the West and rapidly rising life expectancy globally. The UN projects that by the late 2070s, people over 65 will actually outnumber children under 18 for the first time in human history.

The under-20 share is on a steady decline, falling from ~36% to ~28%, driven by falling fertility rates in nearly every region. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the main exception — it still has very high youth shares — but even there the trend is downward.

The working-age group (20–65) stays relatively stable in percentage terms through 2050, though this masks enormous regional variation: it's shrinking in Europe, Japan, and China while still growing in parts of Africa and South Asia. The demographic dividend window is closing for many economies.

When you look at the US, Europe, China and Russia you see that except for the US everyone else is f-cked.

The contrast across these four is striking. A few observations worth noting:

China is the outlier story. The one-child policy's demographic debt is now coming due at extraordinary speed. China is projected to become a super-aged society (20%+ over 65) by 2033, a transition that took Europe well over a century. The share of working-age population is forecast to decline from about 64% in 2020 to around 50% in 2050, and the over-65 share may hit 27%. There's no immigration buffer to soften this. PubMed CentralStatista

Europe is already there — and keeps going. Older people aged 65+ had a 22% share of the EU population in 2024. The share of working-age population (20–64) is projected to decrease from 61% in 2025 to around 49% by 2050, while the over-65 share approaches 30%. Nearly one in three Europeans elderly by mid-century. EurostatEurostat

The US is notably more resilient, exactly as you anticipated. Although the United States will age over this period, it will remain one of the youngest developed countries, with about 20.9% of its population 65 and over in 2050 — several points below Europe. Immigration continuously replenishes the working-age base and keeps the youth share from collapsing the way it does in China or even Russia. census

Russia is in a difficult position distinct from the others: it faces the same aging trajectory as Europe but with a shrinking total population, with the over-65 share projected to reach around 23% by 2050, compounded by war casualties and emigration that aren't fully captured in official UN projections. Grokipedia

Which leads me to AI Everyone is panicked about this new technology taking jobs in developed nations. That's not the point. In the next 30 years, we're going to suffer a demographic labor shortage. We'll need AI to pick up the slack.