Sort everyone on Earth into one giant line by age, from youngest to oldest, and find the person standing exactly in the middle. They are about 31 years old. That is the world's median age.
Now do the same exercise for two continents.
In Africa, the median person is 19. In Europe, the median person is 43.
That is a twenty-four-year gap. Younger than the legal drinking age in most countries on one continent. Almost retired on the other.
According to the UN's 2024 World Population Prospects — the global gold standard for demographic data — Africa is the youngest region on Earth and Europe is the oldest. Roughly 60% of Africa's 1.58 billion people are under 25. In Europe, nearly the same proportion are over 40. And the gap is widening: by 2050, Africa is projected to host 2.5 billion people, while Europe's population is expected to be about the same as today — propped up almost entirely by immigration.
For comparison, here is the median age across major regions:
- Africa: ~19
- Latin America: ~32
- Asia: ~33
- North America: ~39
- Europe: ~43
- World: ~31
Inside Africa the contrasts get sharper. Niger has a median age of 15.1, the lowest of any country on Earth. Uganda, Mali, Chad, Angola, and Somalia all sit under 17. In Europe, Italy and Germany are at 47. Monaco hits 56. The countries running the global economy are, by demographic logic, getting smaller and older every year. The countries with most of the world's young people are getting bigger and younger.
The economic consequences of this are only just starting to hit. By 2100, 46% of all under-25s on Earth will live in Africa — Asia, today's youth giant, will have aged past it. Africa is on track to host 12 of the world's 25 most populous countries by the end of the century. Today, China and Europe make the things the world buys. Tomorrow's workers, consumers, soldiers, and voters are being born in Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa and Cairo right now.
The single biggest story in 21st-century economics is not AI, not the US-China rivalry, not the energy transition. It is that the average European is more than twice as old as the average African — on the continent that will hold a quarter of humanity within a generation.
The next time someone talks about "the global economy", ask whose grandchildren they mean.