Topics
Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024
High-income countries and 
Low-income countries, side by side
In 2026, half of the people in high-income countries are older than 43. In low-income countries, half are older than 19.
UN estimates for mid-2023: High-income countries 1,261,155,608 people · Low-income countries 736,466,397
How to read this: each pyramid stacks a place’s people by age — babies at the bottom, the oldest at the top, men on the left and women on the right. A wide bottom means many children; a wide top means many older people.
Each bar is a share of its own place’s people, so a small country and a large one can be read side by side.
men women projected
AGG × AGG · 2026 · age groups
If each place were 100 people
Shrink each population to 100 people and count them. Dots are children under 15, filled squares are people aged 15 to 64, and open squares are people 65 and over. The picture follows the year slider above.
- Children, under 15
- 15
- Aged 15 to 64
- 64
- Aged 65 and over
- 21
- Children, under 15
- 41
- Aged 15 to 64
- 56
- Aged 65 and over
- 3
AGG × AGG · families and lifetimes
Children, and how long lives last
High-income countries is at about 1.5 children for each woman, at this year's rates; low-income countries is at about 4.3. Around 2.1 children per woman keeps a population the same size over time, leaving migration aside. A baby born in high-income countries this year can expect to live about 82 years. In low-income countries, about 66.
Children per woman, 2026
Each figure is one child: how many children a woman would have in her lifetime at that year’s rates.
The dashed line at 2.1 is about what it takes for each generation to replace the one before it, leaving migration aside.
How long a newborn can expect to live, 2026
Each block is ten years of life, if the death rates of that year stayed the same all life long.
Hatched marks are UN projections (medium variant), not measurements.
AGG × AGG · 1950–2100 · how many
How big, and where they are heading
High-income countries has about 60% more people than low-income countries: 1.27 billion against 798 million.
Since 1950 the two have moved differently: high-income countries' population is 1.8 times what it was in 1950, while low-income countries' population is 7.1 times what it was in 1950.
High-income countries' population is expected to peak in 2045. Meanwhile low-income countries' population is still growing in 2100. The UN expects low-income countries to have more people than high-income countries from 2049. In 2100: 1.25 billion in high-income countries, 2.15 billion in low-income countries (UN projection, medium).
Show the numbers
| Year | High-income countries: people | Low-income countries: people | High-income countries: half older than | Low-income countries: half older than | High-income countries: children per woman | Low-income countries: children per woman | High-income countries: life expectancy | Low-income countries: life expectancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 692.711 million | 112.417 million | 28.4 | 18.6 | 3.04 | 6.48 | 61.8 | 31.2 |
| 1960 | 782.237 million | 136.126 million | 29.1 | 18.5 | 3.00 | 6.44 | 68.1 | 40.5 |
| 1970 | 876.449 million | 175.246 million | 29.3 | 17.9 | 2.54 | 6.67 | 70.3 | 43.8 |
| 1980 | 957.870 million | 226.853 million | 30.9 | 17.3 | 1.99 | 6.68 | 73.0 | 46.7 |
| 1990 | 1.02828 billion | 292.948 million | 33.5 | 17.3 | 1.82 | 6.48 | 75.3 | 49.2 |
| 2000 | 1.09676 billion | 390.080 million | 36.4 | 17.1 | 1.69 | 6.07 | 77.6 | 53.1 |
| 2010 | 1.17686 billion | 520.054 million | 39.0 | 17.5 | 1.71 | 5.41 | 79.9 | 59.5 |
| 2023 | 1.26116 billion | 736.466 million | 41.9 | 18.9 | 1.47 | 4.53 | 81.4 | 64.9 |
| 2030* | 1.27905 billion | 881.982 million | 43.5 | 20.0 | 1.49 | 4.00 | 82.5 | 66.3 |
| 2040* | 1.29060 billion | 1.09778 billion | 45.0 | 21.8 | 1.52 | 3.38 | 83.9 | 67.9 |
| 2050* | 1.29074 billion | 1.31814 billion | 45.5 | 24.2 | 1.55 | 2.95 | 85.2 | 69.3 |
| 2060* | 1.27900 billion | 1.53532 billion | 46.5 | 26.7 | 1.57 | 2.64 | 86.4 | 70.7 |
| 2070* | 1.26648 billion | 1.73552 billion | 46.8 | 29.1 | 1.58 | 2.42 | 87.5 | 72.0 |
| 2080* | 1.25875 billion | 1.90896 billion | 46.6 | 31.5 | 1.59 | 2.25 | 88.7 | 73.3 |
| 2090* | 1.25461 billion | 2.04877 billion | 46.8 | 33.8 | 1.60 | 2.12 | 89.8 | 74.5 |
| 2100* | 1.25236 billion | 2.15193 billion | 47.1 | 36.0 | 1.60 | 2.03 | 90.8 | 75.7 |
* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.
AGG − AGG · 1950–2100 · every age
Which ages each place has more of
Each column is a year and each row an age, from babies at the bottom to 100 at the top. The shade of a cell shows which place has more of its people at that age — the key beside the picture tells you which shade is high-income countries and which is low-income countries, and the in-between shade means the same. Because it compares shares, a small place and a large one can be compared fairly.
236 countries · 1950–2100
Where they sit among all countries
Every country in the world, every year from 1950 to 2100. The grey cloud shows where most countries are; high-income countries is drawn in solid blue squares and low-income countries in open orange squares, so you can see whether each is ahead of the crowd, behind it or in the middle.
More comparisons
Keep exploring
Each place on its own: High-income countries · Low-income countries. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.
Other comparisons
Apparatus
Sources and method
Every figure for High-income countries and Low-income countries is the United Nations Population Division's, from World Population Prospects 2024: counted to 2023, and the medium projection for each year after that. Both places are taken from the same release and the same tables, which is what makes them comparable at all.
How the median age and the “100 people” pictures are worked out, and why the pictures of every country leave the regions out: how the figures here are put together.
There are 250 ready-made comparisons on this site. For anything else, name two places in the boxes at the top of the page.
Sources: UN WPP 2024 · flag-icons. Every source, its licence and how to cite it →
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries