The Average Person Will Age 11 Years and Become a Woman
Longer lives and fewer babies will push the global average from 31 to 42 by the end of the century.
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell · The World’s Most Average PersonMeet the most average human alive. He just turned 31. By country he is Indian, by language a Mandarin speaker.
That odd combination is what happens when you blend eight billion people into one person. Men still slightly outnumber women, so the blend comes out as a man. Earlier, that composite person came from China, until India passed China in population in 2023 and claimed the title.
He will not stay 31 for long. By 2050, he will be six years older, at 37. By 2100, he will be 42, and he will probably be a she.
The aging is simple arithmetic about births and deaths. When people live longer, more of them pile up at the older end of the population. At the same time, when families have fewer babies, fewer young people arrive at the other end to balance them out. The middle shifts upward, the way the average age in a room rises if grandparents stay longer and fewer toddlers walk in.
The change from male to female has a different cause. Right now, men narrowly outnumber women, which tips the blend toward male. Women, however, tend to live longer than men, so as the world as a whole gets older, women are expected to narrowly outnumber men by the end of the century, which tips the blend toward female.
So the average person keeps getting older, from 31 today to 37 in 2050 to 42 in 2100.
Questions people ask
Why does the average person speak Mandarin if he is from India?
The average nationality and the average language are calculated separately. India now has the largest share of people by country, so the average person is Indian. Mandarin Chinese still has the largest share of speakers by first language, so the average language is Mandarin.
If more boys are born than girls, how do women pull ahead?
Slightly more boys are born than girls, so men outnumber women in younger age groups. Women tend to live longer than men, so in an older world population, the greater number of surviving older women can outweigh the early male lead.
Is 42 the average age or the median age?
Popular portraits like this usually describe a composite or median person, the person in the middle if everyone lined up by age. The mechanism is the same either way. Fewer births and longer lives raise both the average and the median age.