The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation published their annual letter that highlights the surprises they saw in 2018, as well as the philanthropic opportunities they’ve identified for the future.
Among many other compelling facts and stories, the letter pointed out one surprise that we thought was of particular interest: the median age of the African continent is just 18 years old.
What’s interesting here is not only Africa’s median age, but also that the median age for each other continent is at least 13 years older. In other words, this means Africa is a real demographic outlier.
In their letter, Bill and Melinda Gates drop one additional fact that helps crystallize this even further: by 2100, it’s projected that nearly half of the world’s children aged 0-4 years old will be in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Median Ages, by Country
The difference in median age between Africa and Europe is quite astonishing, but the gap gets even wider when we look at individual countries.
For example, Monaco is the country with the oldest population in the world with a median age of 53.1 years – but this is roughly 3.5x higher than the median age of Niger, where it is just 15.4 years.
