Generation Alpha is a social cohort generally identified by researchers and popular media as being born between the early 2010s and mid 2020s. The birth years of Generation Alpha have seen a decline in birth rates, especially in the developed world.

Global trends As of 2015, there were some two and a half million people born every week around the globe; Generation Alpha is expected to reach close to two billion by 2025. For comparison, the United Nations estimated that the human population was about 7.8 billion in 2020, up from 2.5 billion in 1950. Roughly three-quarters of all people reside in Africa and Asia in 2020. In fact, most human population growth comes from these two continents, as nations in Europe and the Americas tend to have too few children to replace themselves.

2018 was the first time when the number of people above 65 years of age (705 million) exceeded those between the ages of zero and four (680 million). If current trends continue, the ratio between these two age groups will top two by 2050. In fact, about half of all countries had sub-replacement fertility in the mid-2010s. The global average fertility rate in 1950 was 4.7 but dropped to 2.4 in 2017. However, this average masks the huge variation between countries. Niger has the world's highest fertility rate at 7.1 while Cyprus has one of the lowest at 1.0. In general, the more developed countries, including much of Europe, the United States, South Korea, and Australia, tend to have lower fertility rates. People in such places tend to have children later and fewer of them. However, surveys conducted in developed economies suggest that women's desired family sizes tend to be higher than their completed fertility. Stagnant wages and eroding welfare programs are the contributing factors. While some countries, such as Sweden and Singapore, have tried various incentives to raise their fertility rates, such policies have not been particularly successful. Moreover, birth rates following the COVID-19 global pandemic might drop significantly due to economic recession. Data from late 2020 and early 2021 suggests that despite hopes of a baby boom due to the lockdowns, precisely the opposite happened, at least in developed nations like France or the United States, but not necessarily developing ones, such as Brazil or Uganda.

Education is in fact one of the most important determinants of fertility. The more educated a woman is, the later she tends to have children, and fewer of them. At the same time, the global average life expectancy has gone from 52 in 1960 to 72 in 2017. Higher interest in education brings about an environment in which mortality rates fall, which in turn, increases population density. All these factors reduce fertility, as does cultural transmission. Increasing immigration is problematic while policies that encourage people to have more children rarely succeed. Moreover, immigration is not an option at the global level.

Half of the human population lived in urban areas in 2007, and this figure became 55% in 2019. If the current trend continues, it will reach two thirds by the middle of the century. A direct consequence of urbanization is falling fertility. In rural areas, children can be considered an asset, that is, additional labor. But in the cities, children are a burden. Moreover, urban women demand greater autonomy and exercise more control over their fertility. The United Nations estimated in mid-2019 that the human population will reach about 9.7 billion by 2050, a downward revision from an older projection to account for the fact that fertility has been falling faster than previously thought in the developing world. The global annual rate of growth has been declining steadily since the late twentieth century, dropping to about one percent in 2019. In fact, by the late 2010s, 83 of the world's countries had sub-replacement fertility.

During the early to mid-2010s, more babies were born to Christian mothers than to those of any other religion in the world, reflecting the fact that Christianity remained the most popular religion in existence. However, it was the Muslims who had a faster rate of growth. About 33% of the world's babies were born to Christians who made up 31% of the global population between 2010 and 2015, compared to 31% to Muslims, whose share of the human population was 24%. During the same period, the religiously unaffiliated (including atheists and agnostics) made up 16% of the population but gave birth to only 10% of the world's children.

Africa

Populous Nations

Egypt

Egypt's population reached the 100-million milestone in February 2020. According to government figures, during the 1990s and 2000s, Egypt's fertility rate fell from 5.2 down to 3.0, but then rose up to 3.5 in 2018, according to the United Nations. If the current rate of growth continues, Egypt will be home to more than 128 million people by 2030. Such rapid population growth is a cause for concern in a country marked by poverty, unemployment, shortages of clean water, lack of affordable housing, and traffic congestion. Harsh geography exacerbates the problem: 95% of the population lives on just 4% of the land, a region in the neighborhood of the Nile River roughly half the size of Ireland. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi claimed that overpopulation posed as much a threat to national security as terrorism. He launched a campaign called “Two Is Enough” in order to curb the problem, but to no avail. Egypt's fertility rate surged at around the Arab Spring, likely as a result of political chaos, economic uncertainty, and funds for birth control from Western governments drying up. Fertility rates remained the highest in rural areas, where children are considered a blessing, but the impact is most visible in Greater Cairo, a megalopolis home to over 20 million people. In general, Egypt's densely populated cities and towns have one million additional residents each year between 2008 and 2018.

Nigeria Nigeria was experiencing a population boom in the 2010s and is on track to become the world's third most populous nation by century's end, according to United Nations figures. However, this demographic trend comes with its own risks, namely environmental, health, and food security problems. Moreover, the nation is already battling deadly infectious diseases, which spread more easily with higher population densities, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and Lassa fever.

Other African Nations Statistical projections from the United Nations in 2019 suggest that, by 2020, the people of Niger would have a median age of 15.2, Mali 16.3, Chad 16.6, Somalia, Uganda, and Angola all 16.7, the Democratic Republic of the Congo 17.0, Burundi 17.3, Mozambique and Zambia both 17.6. (This means that more than half of their populations were born in the first two decades of the twenty-first century.) Benin, Burundi, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, Yemen, and Timor-Leste had a median age of 17 in 2017, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations, University of Washington.

These are the world's youngest countries by median age. While a booming population can induce substantial economic growth, if healthcare, education, and economic needs were not met, there would be chronic youth unemployment, low productivity, and social unrest. Investing in human capital is crucial. Curbing population growth could help Africa take advantage of the demographic dividend that enabled the Asian Tigers to develop so rapidly during the late twentieth century. Africa's population boom could have a significant international impact, as many of its natives seek to migrate to other countries both within and outside Africa seeking a better life.

While Africa is the world's most fertile region, it also has the world's highest child mortality rates. Nevertheless, Africa is largely responsible for human population growth in the twenty-first century, overtaking Asia. Moreover, sub-Saharan Africa is the only major region that is an exception to the general trend of falling family size seen around the world.

Asia

East Asia

People's Republic of China

In 2016, the People's Republic of China replaced one-child policy with the two-child policy; the nation's birth rate briefly surged before continuing on a downward path. In 2019, 14.65 million babies were born in China, the lowest since 1961. Although demographers and economists have urged the Chinese Central Government to eliminate all birth restrictions, they have been reluctant to do so. Economist Ren Zeping of Evergrande calculated that between 2013 and 2028, the number of Chinese women between the ages of 20 and 35 would drop by 30%. Official data is often unreliable and even self-contradictory. "China's birth numbers are very sloppy and highly influenced by politics," demographer Yi Fuxian of the University of Wisconsin – Madison told the South China Morning Post. Overall, China's population grew to 1.4 billion in 2019 from 1.39 billion the year before. In a 2019 paper, Yi Fuxian estimated that China's average annual fertility rate was 1.18 between 2010 and 2018. Less than 6% of China's population was under five years old in 2018, compared to 3.85% in Japan. A Chinese person born in the late 2010s has a life expectancy of 76 years, up from 44 in 1960. According to a projection by the United Nations, China's median age would reach that of the United States in 2020 and would subsequently converge with Europe's but would remain below that of Japan. If the current trend continues, by 2050, the median age of China will be 50, compared to 42 for the United States and 38 for India.

Such a trend has fueled predictions of dreadful socioeconomic problems. A study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) published in January 2020 predicts that China's population would peak in 2029 at 1.44 billion, after which decline would be "unstoppable." CASS calculated that China's population will fall to 1.36 billion by mid-century, losing almost 200 million workers. CASS recommended that the government implement policies that would address the problems of a shrinking labor force and an increasing elderly population, which means a growing dependency rate. A large and young labor force and domestic consumption have driven China's rapid economic growth. Yet due to a shrinking pool of young people, China has suffered from labor shortages and reduced growth in the 2010s. Young Chinese women living in the twenty-first century tend to be reluctant to have children for a number of reasons. In large cities, such as Shanghai, people typically spend at least a third of their income on raising a child. Chinese women have become a lot more career-oriented. On top of that, Chinese workplaces generally do not offer accommodations for women with young children, who often face demotion or even unemployment after returning from maternity leave. Not only do shortages of young workers have implications for China's economic prospects, they also pose a serious burden on young people being born today. They will have to take care of four grandparents and two parents on their own, as their siblings will not have been born.

As a result of cultural ideals, government policy, and modern medicine, there have been severe gender imbalances in China and India. According to the United Nations, in 2018, China and India had a combined 50 million of excess males under the age of 20. Such a discrepancy fuels loneliness epidemics, human trafficking (from elsewhere in Asia, such as Cambodia and Vietnam), and prostitution, among other societal problems.

Japan Japan at present has one of the oldest populations in the world and persistently sub-replacement fertility, currently 1.4 children per woman. Japan's population peaked in 2017.

South Korea