Demography is increasingly becoming one of the main factors that will determine the economy, politics, and the global balance of power in the 21st century. A new video by the Experts Club analytical center, dedicated to changes in the population of the 20 largest countries in the world, shows that the demographic center of gravity is gradually shifting from East Asia to South Asia and Africa. This conclusion generally coincides with the latest UN estimates: under the baseline scenario, the world’s population will grow from 8.2 billion in 2024 to approximately 10.3 billion in the mid-2080s, after which it will reach a plateau and begin to decline slowly.
The main change has already taken place at the top of the global ranking. India has overtaken China and secured its status as the most populous country in the world. At the same time, the further trajectories of these countries diverge: India will remain at very high levels for some time, while China has already entered a phase of long-term demographic decline.
Looking at the top twenty more broadly, it becomes clear that the former demographic balance of the world is becoming a thing of the past. China, Japan, Russia, and a number of European countries are facing either stagnation or population decline, while Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other rapidly growing countries of the Global South are strengthening their positions. The UN directly points out that population growth until the end of the century will increasingly be concentrated in sub-Saharan African countries, while a number of large countries in Asia and Europe have already begun or are expected to undergo a sustained decline in the number of inhabitants.
Africa attracts particular attention in this context. According to UN forecasts, Nigeria will secure its place among the world’s largest countries during the 21st century and become one of the most important demographic centers of the planet. At the same time, the populations of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia are growing very rapidly. This means that in a few decades it will be African states that will have a much stronger influence on global demand, labor markets, urbanization, food consumption, and investment flows.
“We are entering an era when demography is once again becoming a strategic force. Not oil, not gas, and not even individual technologies, but precisely population size, age structure, and population dynamics will determine where new markets, new centers of production, and new political leaders of the world will emerge. Countries that are increasing their populations today will tomorrow claim greater influence in the global economy and international politics,” said Maksym Urakin, co-organizer of the Experts Club analytical center and Candidate of Economic and Historical Sciences.
For the global economy, this is not just statistics. Demographic growth creates future consumer markets, but at the same time requires jobs, infrastructure, education systems, and healthcare systems. In countries where the population is growing rapidly, the main challenge is turning demographic mass into an economic resource. In countries where the population is shrinking and aging, the problem is different — pressure on pension systems, labor shortages, and a slowdown in domestic demand. UN materials emphasize that dozens of countries have already passed their population peak, and this will increasingly affect the economic architecture of the world.
Against this background, the Experts Club video emphasizes another important idea: the question is no longer only how many people live in a country today, but also which direction the trend is moving in. Some states remain in the top 20 by inertia for now, but will gradually lose demographic weight. Others, by contrast, are only rising in the global ranking, but it is they who are shaping the new architecture of the 21st century. This is especially visible in the example of China and India, as well as Nigeria, Pakistan, and the DRC.
Experts Club separately draws attention to the Ukrainian case. According to a recent study published by Open4Business with reference to a Visual Capitalist visualization based on UN data, Ukraine has become the world leader in population decline since 2000. In the top 10 countries by population decline in 2000–2025, Ukraine ranked first with a figure of -32.5%. It is followed in this anti-ranking by the Marshall Islands, Bulgaria, Latvia, Moldova, Lithuania, Puerto Rico, Romania, Serbia, and Albania.
For Ukraine, this result is particularly alarming, since it is no longer simply a matter of natural demographic decline, but a combination of low birth rates, population aging, emigration, and the consequences of the full-scale war. Open4Business also notes that in 2022–2023 alone, net migration from Ukraine amounted to about 6 million people, which further intensified demographic pressure on the country.
“Ukraine today is one of the most illustrative examples of how a demographic crisis turns into a question of the national future. If a country becomes the world leader in population decline over a quarter of a century, this is no longer a social anomaly, but a fundamental challenge for the economy, the labor market, the education system, the pension model, and even post-war recovery. Demography has already become a matter of economic security, and in the coming years its importance will only grow,” Urakin emphasized.
For Ukraine and Europe, such global shifts mean increasing competition for human capital, investment, and markets. If Europe remains a space of aging and low birth rates, the Global South is becoming a space of large-scale demographic expansion. As a result, the political and economic weight of the world will be redistributed ever more noticeably in favor of those countries where the population continues to grow rapidly. This is no longer a hypothesis, but a long-term trend confirmed by international demographic studies.
That is why demography is becoming one of the central topics for strategic analysis. Changes in the population size of the world’s largest countries are at the same time a story about the economy, geopolitics, and the future of the global system as a whole. The Experts Club video shows this transformation in a visual form: the world of the 21st century will not simply be more populous, but different in terms of its demographic center of gravity.
