The Megatrend that Changes Everything in the 21st-Century

We’re living far longer. And we’re yet to process the implications.

Image by VAlex from Shutterstock

This is a classic population pyramid. It shows the distribution of age groups across a human population.

This has been the shape of almost every human society that’s ever existed. High birth and death rates mean lots of young children, with steadily declining numbers as you move up the graph. Above 65, the pyramid dwindles to almost nothing.

But 21st-century affluent societies have overturned this historical truth about populations. This is the equivalent graph for the population of Europe in 2019 and as forecast in 2100, from the EU’s data agency Eurostat.

Two changes are immediately clear. First, Europe’s 2019 population pyramid isn’t a pyramid at all; it is widest at the centre, between the ages of 40 and 55. Second, a momentous demographic shift is still underway, such that by 2100 the largest single population group, by a…