Only Three of Eight World Regions Will Have More Children in 2040
Sub-Saharan Africa is up 24% by 2040. East Asia is down 24%. Five of the eight world regions are losing children, and the map of childhood is being redrawn.
Of the eight world regions, only Sub-Saharan Africa at +24.1%, Oceania at +1.2% and the Middle East and North Africa at +0.9% are projected to have more under-15s in 2040 than today, while East Asia and Pacific falls 23.6%.
Every regional aggregate on this site is population-weighted across its member countries. Put the eight of them side by side and one fact dominates: five are losing children, and the three that are not are not the ones most coverage is about.
The eight regions
| Region | Countries | Gen Alpha | Fertility | Median age | Under-15 change to 2040 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 45 | 490.4m | 4.3 | 19 | +24.1% |
| Oceania | 10 | 6.2m | 1.6 | 38 | +1.2% |
| Middle East & North Africa | 23 | 182.2m | 2.6 | 27 | +0.9% |
| North America | 4 | 99.0m | 1.6 | 37 | −6.4% |
| South Asia | 6 | 463.1m | 2.2 | 28 | −9.7% |
| Europe & Central Asia | 52 | 146.5m | 1.6 | 41 | −11.9% |
| Latin America | 39 | 119.9m | 1.8 | 32 | −17.7% |
| East Asia & Pacific | 15 | 414.8m | 1.3 | 38 | −23.6% |
What the table is actually saying
The top and bottom rows are a 48-point swing. Sub-Saharan Africa gains a quarter of its child population while East Asia and Pacific loses a quarter of its. Those are the same fifteen years.
South Asia is already turning. It holds the second-largest cohort at 463 million and is projected to fall 9.7%. Its fertility rate is 2.2 — barely above replacement — and its median age is 28. The region most people still picture as young is a decade into its transition.
Europe has 52 countries and 146 million children. Sub-Saharan Africa has 45 countries and 490 million. Three and a half times the children from fewer countries, which is worth holding on to when reading anything that treats "the world's children" as a single population with European characteristics.
Oceania's +1.2% is ten countries and 6.2 million children. It is the smallest cohort in the table by a factor of twenty, and a percentage on a small base is not the same claim as a percentage on a large one.
Momentum, which is the part that confuses people
Sub-Saharan Africa's fertility rate is falling. Its child population is still rising 24%. Both are true and the reconciliation is age structure.
A region with a median age of 19 has an enormous number of people about to enter their childbearing years. Even as each of them has fewer children than their parents did, there are so many more of them that total births keep climbing. That is population momentum, and it runs for decades after the rate itself turns.
The inverse is East Asia and Pacific: a median age of 38 and a fertility rate of 1.3, well under replacement. Its child population does not fall because of anything happening now — it falls because the people who would have been the parents were not born twenty years ago.
Why this matters more than the global total
The global under-15 figure moves slowly and hides everything. The regional figures move in opposite directions at once, which means almost any claim about "children worldwide" is true of some regions and the reverse of others.
If you are planning anything with a fifteen-year horizon — schools, paediatric services, children's products, curricula — the relevant number is regional and it is knowable now. Every child who will be fourteen in 2040 has already been born or will be within the decade.
Explore each one: Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, East Asia & Pacific, Europe & Central Asia, Latin America, Middle East & North Africa, North America and Oceania — or the country-level ranking at under-15 population change to 2040.