At the end of October 2011, the Earth is expected to welcome its 7 billionth citizen. The global population has been growing at a breath taking pace: it has taken just 100 years for the world's population to quadruple from 1.65 billion to today's nearly 7 billion.
Rising life expectancy drives global growth of population
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The joyful event, however, conceals an important fact: global population is aging at double speed, as birth rates are falling and at the same time life expectancy is rising. Since 1950, worldwide average life expectancy at birth has increased from 45.4 to 68.2 years. Higher standards of living, improvements in hygiene and medical progress have made key contributions to this trend.
The rise in life expectancy has been greatest in Asia, where it has increased by almost 30 years in the past 60 years, from 39.9 to 69.6 years. In the same period, the birth rate has halved from 5.0 children per woman to 2.5.
The world's population has quadrupled in the past 100 years.
The implications of this global megatrend for the pensions systems as well as possible investment opportunities are analysed in a series of three publications by experts of Allianz Economic Research, AllianzGI International Pensions and AllianzGI Capital Market Analysis.
You can download the first one on the demographic turning point from a global perspective by Michaela Grimm, Allianz Economic Research, at the top of this page.
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