How Many Children Are There in the World? About 1.98 Billion
About 1.98 billion people are under 15, roughly one in four. Half are in eight countries, and India alone has more children than 192 countries have people.
About 1.98 billion people alive today are under 15, which is 24.5% of the population of the 194 countries in this dataset. Half of them live in just eight countries, and India's 348 million under-15s alone outnumber the entire population of every country on Earth except India and China.
About 1.98 billion people alive today are under 15. That is 24.5% of the population of the 194 countries in this dataset — roughly one person in four.
Two things about that number are more useful than the number itself: where those children are, and what it is not counting.
Half the world's children are in eight countries
| Country | Under-15s | As a share of that country |
|---|---|---|
| India | 348 m | 24% |
| China | 227 m | 16% |
| Nigeria | 95 m | 41% |
| Pakistan | 88 m | 35% |
| Indonesia | 68 m | 24% |
| United States | 62 m | 18% |
| DR Congo | 49 m | 45% |
| Ethiopia | 49 m | 37% |
Those eight hold 986 million between them — 49.8% of every child on Earth.
The India figure is worth sitting with. 348 million under-15s is more people than the entire population of 192 of the 194 countries in this dataset. Only India and China have more people in total than India has children. The United States, third-largest country in the world, has 345 million people of every age.
What this number is not
It is not Generation Alpha. Generation Alpha is births from 2010 to 2024, which in 2026 means ages 2 to 16. Under-15 means ages 0 to 14. Both land near 2 billion — Alpha is about 2.01 billion on the live counter, under-15s about 1.98 billion — and the closeness is a coincidence of arithmetic, not a match.
The two groups differ at both ends:
- Under-15 includes 0 and 1 year olds. Those are Generation Beta, not Alpha.
- Generation Alpha includes 15 and 16 year olds. Those are not under 15.
So a headline that says "2 billion children" and links it to Generation Alpha is stacking two different definitions on one figure. If you need the cohort, use the cohort. If you need children, use the age band.
It is not a headcount. Every figure here is a national estimate for 2025–2026, and the under-15 count is derived: the reported population multiplied by the reported under-15 share. Two rounded numbers multiplied together do not produce a precise third one. Treat 1.98 billion as about two billion, and the country figures as accurate to the nearest million at best.
It does not cover everyone. The 194 countries here hold 8,087 million of an estimated 8,231 million people — 98.2%. The remaining 1.8% sits in territories with no comparable published figures. The real total is a little higher than 1.98 billion, by an amount nobody in this dataset can quantify.
The share, not the count, is what differs
Counts follow population size, so the biggest countries lead almost automatically. The share is where countries actually differ, and it differs enormously:
| Country | Under-15 share | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | Central African Republic | 49% |
| Somalia | 47% | |
| Chad | 46% | |
| Mali | 46% | |
| Lowest | Singapore | 12% |
| Puerto Rico | 11% | |
| South Korea | 11% | |
| Japan | 11% |
In the Central African Republic, nearly one person in two is a child. In Japan, roughly one in nine. Twenty-five countries are at or above 40%. Twenty-four are below 15%.
That range is the single most consequential fact on this site. It decides how many classrooms a country needs, how many workers support each dependent, and how much of the next generation is born in one place rather than another. Under-15 share and fertility rate correlate at 0.95 across these 194 countries, so this table is close to a fertility table wearing different labels.
Where to go next
- Under-15 population by country — the full ranking, all 194
- Which countries lose children by 2040 — the direction of travel
- Only three of eight world regions will have more children in 2040
- How many Gen Alpha are there? — the cohort figure, not the age band